Young people who want to "change the world" should become scientists to help find ways to combat global warming, Tony Blair said.
The Prime Minister - in the latest of a series of speeches on the key issues facing the country - said the sector was vital to keeping the UK competitive.
He seized on the publication of the Stern report on challenges posed by global warming in his bid to enthuse a new generation to get involved.
"It might have been a gloomy document. Actually, it wasn't - it was full of can-do optimism.
"One of its implications was that if, as an idealistic young person, you wanted to change the world, then become a scientist," he told the audience in Oxford.
"Politics will be necessary but insufficient. It won't be enough to negotiate and regulate."
He likened the climate change issue to the first moon landing in 1969, which inspired thousands of youngsters to get involved.
He added: "We need our young people today to embrace science enthusiastically, to realise that challenges like climate change can only be beaten by motivated and dedicated scientists, and to understand that a career in science today is not a life all spent in a laboratory but has the best business and job prospects the modern world can offer."
Mr Blair said scientific innovation was "utterly critical to our economy" and as important to the future as stability.
"We have to be a magnet for scientific endeavour, attracting the best people, turning the knowledge into commercial enterprise, forming the collaborations and partnerships here, in Europe and across the world that keep us right at the new frontiers science is perpetually staking out."
