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LONDON—BP PLC Chief Executive Bob Dudley called on governments Wednesday to do more to encourage a shift to lower-carbon fuels, warning that the world is on course to see global temperatures rise to dangerous levels.

Mr. Dudley was joined in his call for climate-change action by other energy-industry officials at International Petroleum Week, the first major western oil-sector conference since global leaders met in Paris in December to set carbon-reduction targets.

"The path to 2 degrees Celsius and below requires emissions to fall starting now," Mr. Dudley told the industry conference in London, referring to the increase in temperature that many scientists say will lead to rising sea levels and other adverse environmental changes.

Europe's biggest energy companies have become vocal in recent years about extending the sort of taxes on fossil fuels that exist in the European Union to other parts of the world, including the U.S. and China. Such measures would likely cut down on heavily polluting coal, while increasing the use of natural gas—a product the oil companies increasingly sell.

Extracting and burning oil, coal, gas and other fossil fuels is so cheap that a government-imposed price on carbon is needed to support the climate-change pledges made in Paris, said Shell's chief climate change adviser David Hone at a panel here.

With the elite of the world's oil companies and traders gathered in London, BP unveiled its latest energy outlook for the next 20 years, saying the increase in carbon emissions will slow sharply over the coming years, but will still increase by around 0.9% a year to 2035.

That is less than half of the 2.1 % emissions growth seen in the past 20 years, BP said.

Overall the company sees global energy demand increase 34% until 2035, driven by economic growth in emerging markets like China and India.

Fossil fuels will still make up 80% of global energy supply in the same time period, but their mix will change. Natural gas is the fastest growing at 1.8% a year, BP said, while coal's share of the energy mix will hit an all-time low in 2035.

BP said governments should impose tougher vehicle-fuel efficiency standards and create incentives for consumers to buy smaller vehicles to slow down the growth of greenhouse gases.

BP's chief economist, Spencer Dale, said policy makers should set a carbon price of $100 a ton for in leading economies.

"The nice thing about the carbon price is that you don't ask policy makers to try and pick winners and losers for the next 20 years," he said.

"We know economics 101 if you want to ration something normally the best way of doing that is to stick a price on it and then let the market find the most efficient way," he added.

Miriam Malek contributed to this article.

Write to Neanda Salvaterra at neanda.salvaterra@wsj.com and Sarah Kent at sarah.kent@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 10, 2016 12:25 ET (17:25 GMT)

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