Climate change treaty can still deliver, despite US pullout

THE 2017 UN climate change summit in Bonn, Germany, finishes on Friday. Coming amid growing scientific alarm about global warming, the chair of the event called for a landmark end to the event that "restates the vision of (the) Paris" landmark climate accord agreed in 2015.

It is fitting that the Fiji prime minister is chairing the meeting given that the very existence of low lying islands is threatened by sea level rises due to climate change. It is also redrawing the map of the world with key cities like Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai, Osaka, Miami, Alexandria and The Hague threatened, too.

On Oct 30, the World Meteorological Organisation warned that the last time carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere were as high as now was three to five million years ago, and that temperatures could continue to spike, hitting dangerous levels by 2100 - unless world leaders take major action.