Posthuman Blues

Climate change sceptics 'out of step, out of arguments and out of time'

Climate change must be taken as seriously as the issues that have traditionally monopolized first-order political attention such as conflict, poverty and the proliferation of deadly weapons, Secretary-General Kofi Annan told a United Nations conference on the issue in Nairobi today.

"Instead of being economically defensive, let us start being more politically courageous," he said. "The Nairobi conference must send a clear, credible signal that the world's political leaders take climate change seriously. The question is not whether climate change is happening, but whether, in the face of this emergency, we ourselves can change fast enough."