SEOUL: Hundreds of researchers at a UN global climate change body met in South Korea on Monday to discuss reform after embarrassing errors in a landmark report dented the organisation's credibility.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) started a four-day session in the city of Busan with some 400 participants, including chairman Rajendra Pachauri and representatives and researchers from member countries, a Korea Meteorological Administration spokesman told AFP.

The agenda for the closed meeting includes renewable energy sources, how to manage natural disasters and recommendations to reform the IPCC, the administration said in a statement last week.

"The (reform) discussion is a very important agenda to determine the future directions of IPCC operations, and the result will receive great attention from the international community," said the statement.

Pachauri and the IPCC came under criticism after the panel admitted its landmark 2007 report exaggerated the speed at which Himalayan glaciers were melting.

The group admitted its mistakes but insisted its core conclusions about climate change were sound.

A five-month probe ordered by UN Secretary General Ban Ki- Moon said the IPCC should have a stronger scientific basis for making its predictions and recommended an overhaul of the position of Pachauri.

The controversy fanned debate in the scientific community on whether concerns over climate change are exaggerated.

But the panel still has a role to "take action for adaptation to climate change" that is "getting more and more difficult to manage", South Korea's Environment Minister Lee Maan-Ee said in an opening speech.

"I believe it is scientifically clear and commonly understood that climate change is unequivocal.... We cannot afford to dismiss this opportunity to build a green and sustainable world for future generations with countermeasures against climate change," he said.

The group is expected to hold a press conference on Thursday after the discussions end.

The UN panel, established in 1988, received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, along with former US Vice President Al Gore, for its contributions to the study of climate change.