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Climate chaos – wilfully looking the other way
The British government’s current policies are about as far from being consistent with Britain’s net zero plan as it is possible to be, argues RICHARD HEBBERT
Extinction Rebellion demonstrators take part in a rally in London, on the last day of the environmental action group's four days of action that they have called "The Big One". Picture date: Monday April 24, 2023.

THE effects of climate change are plain to see. Over recent months we have seen excessive temperatures and wildfires in southern Europe, while the US and China have recorded the hottest temperature on Earth since records began.  

For the global South, this is no more than business as usual, with flooding in the Indian subcontinent and desertification in Africa — where we have also seen the first famine caused by climate change, in Madagascar. In irreversible developments ice caps are melting, sea currents changing and permafrost thawing.  

Climate organisations, most notably the UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), have reported recently that, far from containing post-industrial global warming to the 1.5°C set by the Paris Agreement, we will shortly pass that figure and are set to heat the Earth up by 2.5-3°C by the end of the century; temperatures which would be disastrous.  

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