COP29 opens as 'extreme weather is new reality'

The Paris climate agreement's goals "are in great peril," and 2024 is on track to break temperature records, the United Nations warned yesterday as COP29 talks opened in Baku in Azerbaijan.

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The period from 2015 to 2024 will also be the warmest decade yet recorded, the UN's World Meteorological Organisation said in a new report based on six international datasets.

World Meteorological Organisation chief Celeste Saulo said she was sounding the "red alert".

"It's another SOS for the planet," she said in Baku.

The warming trend is accelerating the shrinking of glaciers and sea level rise and unleashing extreme weather that has wrought havoc on communities and economies around the world.

She warned that the string of devastating extreme weather events across the world this year "are unfortunately our new reality".

They are, she said, "a foretaste of our future".