Beckett warns of developing nations' link to climate change
She told the UN's annual General Assembly in New York: "If we all try to free ride, we will end up in free fall, with accelerating climate change the result of our collective failure.
"If we don't act on climate change, we risk undermining the basis of the prosperity and security we are seeking to achieve."
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Hide AdMs Beckett highlighted China's transition into an economic powerhouse as an example of the dilemma of matching progress with conservation.
"No-one wants this growth to stop. But it is based in China as elsewhere, on a rapidly increasing use of the fossil fuels creating climate change."
Her call comes amid signs of increasing strain between developed and developing nations over who is blame for climate change. Developing nations such as China insist they must have the right to increase industrialisation, and therefore pollution, to catch up with the prosperity of the West.
The United States, the greatest single global polluter, continues to refuse to sign up to the Kyoto agreement limiting emissions.
Ms Beckett said the solution to squaring the circle of prosperity without pollution lay with new technology. "We have much of the technology we need to move to a low-carbon economy. We must deploy it more rapidly."