Pádraig Hoare: Cop27 cannot simply be a talking shop — climate action is long overdue

Cop27 promises to be more target-focused than Cop26. And anyone as yet unconvinced ought to heed a stark warning made in 1989 about the urgent need for climate action

Victims of September's floods taking refuge in a UNHCR camp in Sukkur, Pakistan. Climate change deniers ought to heed a warning (from a perhaps surprising source) from all of 33 years ago. Picture: Fareed Khan/AP

They were stark words, warning of the clear and present danger of a new enemy facing the world, seen and unseen in equal measure: 

“What we are now doing to the world, by degrading the land surfaces, by polluting the waters, and by adding greenhouse gases to the air at an unprecedented rate,” she said.