UN calls for climate deal ahead of summit

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said climate change is the greatest challenge facing a world beset by crises and called on governments to reach a deal on the environment at a meeting in Denmark later this year.

Ban said the world has “less than 10 years to halt [the] global rise in greenhouse gas emissions, if we are to avoid catastrophic consequences for people and the planet”.

“It is, simply, the greatest collective challenge we face as a human family,” Ban said, referring to climate change in a keynote speech at a gathering in Seoul of the World Federation of UN Associations.