Security tight as leaders to gather for climate change talks in Paris

World leaders will gather in Paris next week for the start of crucial climate talks which aim to secure a global deal on tackling climate change.

It is the latest step on a long — and often tortuous — road to securing international agreement on cutting greenhouse gas emissions in a bid to prevent global temperatures going more than 2C above pre-industrial levels and causing “dangerous” climate change.

The meeting kicks off as the world faces its hottest year on record in 2015, and the warmest five-year period recorded — with scientists warning that global warming is “unequivocal” and the human influence on the climate is clear.

Already human-induced climate change is making extreme weather, such as heatwaves more likely, the latest assessment from the United Nation’s World Meteorological Organisation has shown.

Britain’s Prince Charles and prime minister David Cameron and US president Barack Obama are among those world leaders attending the beginning of the talks, taking place amid heavy security after 130 people were killed in Paris in terrorist gun and bomb attacks two weeks ago.