Scientists will this week issue their starkest warning yet about the mounting dangers of global warming.
In a report to be handed to political leaders in Stockholm tonight, they will say that the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation have led to a warming of the globe, including land surfaces, oceans and the atmosphere.
Extreme weather events, including heatwaves and storms, have increased in many regions while ice sheets are dwindling at an alarming rate. Sea levels are rising while the oceans are being acidified - a development that could see the planet's coral reefs disappearing before the end of the century.
Economist and climate change expert Lord Stern yesterday called on governments to start working to create a global low-carbon economy to curtail global warming. Governments, he states, must decide what "kind of world we want to present to our children".
The fifth assessment report on the physical science of climate change by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns that humanity is on course over the next few decades to raise global temperatures by more than 2C compared with pre-industrial levels.