Climate change is a clear and immediate threat, scientists tell us - and rapidly worsening wildfires, storms, heatwaves, droughts and flooding around the world suggest they're right.

Why, then, are we still increasing our planet-heating emissions, and failing to act?

The problem, security experts say, is that most people in richer countries - who produce the majority of those emissions - don't yet see themselves in harm's way.

Global warming "is not inconvenient if you're not affected by it at all", notes Richard Nugee, a climate change strategist for Britain's Ministry of Defence.

What will it take to change views?

The coronavirus pandemic has given more of us a sense of how quickly a personally painful crisis can emerge - and a growing range of other disasters, from choking wildfire smoke in California to repeated hurricanes in the U.S. South, may shift views as well.

But for now, "it is baffling that we willingly and knowingly continue to sow the seeds of our own destruction," noted the U.N.'s disaster risk reduction chief.

In many poorer nations, the risks are already clear.

The triple threat of coronavirus, climate change and conflict is creating "the worst setback we have witnessed in a generation" in battling extreme poverty, with 115 million more extreme poor expected by year's end, according to the World Bank.

Hunger is also surging, warned the U.N. World Food Programme, which won the Nobel Peace Prize last week - while in central India, farmers are seeing a popular soybean variety fail as weather becomes more erratic.

A group of the 48 most climate-vulnerable nations - including small islands threatened by sea-level rise - have warned that further delay in acting on rising emissions would threaten their survival.

"Delayed response is going to be expensive - and irreversible," noted Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde.

See you next week!

Laurie

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