Poor must have the burden of global warming lifted | Comment is free

A couple of things are certain about the latest round of UN climate change talks that begin tomorrow in Bonn. The first is that any advance toward implementing a proper commitment on reducing carbon dioxide emissions will again be what used to be known as glacial. The second is that the climate in which these talks are being held is already markedly hotter to that in which they began very nearly 20 years ago.

You don't have to be a wheat farmer in Suffolk to know that we are not waiting for climate change to happen, as we liked to believe when the UN started talking in 1992; we are in the midst of it. Every year in this century has been warmer than all but one – 1998 – in the last. Last year, the second hottest on record, an unprecedented 19 nations set new all-time temperature records and, as one consequence, extreme weather events have increased both incontrovertibly and in line with prediction.

Source: The Guardian