'World strapped to a doomsday device'

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson opened a global climate summit yesterday, saying the world is strapped to a "doomsday device.''

Johnson likened an ever-warming Earth's position to that of fictional secret agent James Bond - strapped to a bomb that will destroy the planet and trying to work out how to defuse it.

He told leaders that "we are in roughly the same position - only now the ticking doomsday device'' is real and not fiction. The threat is climate change triggered by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas, and he pointed out that it all started in Glasgow with James Watt's steam engine powered by coal.

He was kicking off the world leaders' summit portion of a United Nations climate conference, which is aimed at getting agreement to curb carbon emissions fast enough to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius below pre-industrial levels.

The world has already warmed 1.1 degrees. Current projections based on planned emissions cuts over the next decade are for it to hit 2.7 degrees by the year 2100.

Johnson told the summit that humanity had run down the clock when it comes to climate change, and the time for action is now.

He pointed out that the more than 130 world leaders who gathered had an average age of over 60, while the generations most harmed by climate change are not yet born.

Britain's leader struck a gloomy note on the eve of the conference, after leaders from the G20 major economies made only modest climate commitments at their summit in Rome this weekend.

After Johnson, scores of other leaders are to traipse to the podium at the crucial international climate talks in Scotland and talk about what their country is going to do about the threat of global warming.

From US President Joe Biden to Seychelles President Wavel John Charles Ramkalawan, they are expected to say how their nation will do its utmost, challenge colleagues to do more and generally turn up the rhetoric.

President Xi Jinping will not be in Glasgow. But former UN climate secretary Christiana Figueres said his absence is not that big a deal because he is not leaving the country during the pandemic and his climate envoy is a veteran negotiator.

In Paris, the two signature goals - the 1.5-degree Celsius limit and net zero carbon emissions by 2050 - were created by this leaders-first process, Figueres said. In the unsuccessful 2009 Copenhagen meeting the leaders swooped in at the end.

As Johnson was speaking, Swedish activist Greta Thunberg retweeted an appeal for her millions of supporters to sign an open letter accusing leaders of betrayal.

"This is not a drill. It's code red for the Earth," it read. "Millions will suffer as our planet is devastated - a terrifying future that will be created, or avoided, by the decisions you make. You have the power to decide."