‘Global emissions continue to increase, carbon sinks are being degraded and we can no longer exclude the possibility of surpassing 2.9C of warming by 2100.” It is a bleak assessment of our planet’s future and could have been made by just about any environmental organisation on Earth.

In fact, they are the views of an international group of climate experts that highlight, in sharp detail, the manifest failings of the UN’s annual Cop climate summits, whose 29th iteration is now being staged in Baku, Azerbaijan. These talks, they said last week, are no longer fit for purpose and need an urgent overhaul.

The group – which includes former UN secretary general Ban-Ki moon and former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres – are to be congratulated for the veracity and timing of their warning. Cop summits have become a byword for talk and very little action, as illustrated by the fact they have taken almost 30 years merely to agree to “transition........

© The Guardian