Boris Johnson makes an urgent appeal to world leaders to halt the \u2018doomsday clock\u2019 of climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
BORIS JOHNSON compared the planet\u2019s condition to that of James Bond, who is tied to a doomsday device and rushing towards a disaster that will put an end to human life as we know it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, speaking at the Cop26 climate change summit in Glasgow, warned the world was at \u201cone minute to midnight\u201d and facing disaster if it did not act. He sketched a horrific image of the future in front of the assembled world leaders, complete with wildfires, drought, dwindling food supplies, and towns submerged beneath the waves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He warned that if world leaders do not \u201cget real\u201d about the threats they face in the coming two weeks, the \u201canger and impatience\u201d of the world\u2019s population will be \u201cuncontainable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re in a situation similar to James Bond today,\u201d he continued, \u201cbut the tragedy is that this isn\u2019t a movie and the doomsday weapon is real.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe clock is ticking to the violent rhythm of hundreds of billions of pistons, turbines, furnaces, and engines\u2026 covering the Earth in an invisible and suffocating blanket of CO2, rising the temperature of the planet with a speed and abruptness that is totally man-made.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr Johnson claims that a 2\u00b0C increase in global temperatures will cause crops to wilt and locusts to swarm, while a 3\u00b0C increase will result in a fivefold increase in droughts, as well as more frequent wildfires and storms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe bid farewell to entire cities \u2013 Miami, Alexandria, Shanghai \u2013 all lost beneath the seas,\u201d says 4C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe longer we wait to act, the worse it gets, and the higher the price will be when we are finally forced to act by catastrophe, since mankind has long since run out of time on climate change,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOn that doomsday clock, it\u2019s one minute to midnight, and we need to act now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He claimed it was here that James Watt built the steam engine and \u201cthe doomsday device began to tick\u201d 250 years ago, emphasizing the \u201cparticular duty\u201d of industrialised countries to the rest of the globe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe may not feel much like James Bond, and not all of us necessarily look like James Bond,\u201d the Prime Minister said, \u201cbut we have the opportunity, the duty, to make this summit the moment when mankind finally began \u2013 and I stress began \u2013 to defuse that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n