Extreme weather may be wake-up call for world, UN climate chief says

Devastating extreme weather, including recent flooding in England, Australia's hottest year on record and the US being hit by a polar vortex have a "silver lining". It boosts global warming to the highest level of politics and reminds politicians that climate change is not a partisan issue, according to the UN's climate chief.

Christiana Figueres said that it was amoral for people to look at global warming from a politically partisan perspective, because of its impact on future generations.

The "very strange" weather experienced across the world over the last two years was a sign "we are [already] experiencing climate change", the executive secretary of the UN climate secretariat said.

The flooding of thousands of homes in England because of the wettest winter on record has brought global warming to the forefront of political debate in Britain. Prime Minister David Cameron, when challenged by Labour leader Ed Miliband for having climate-change sceptics in his cabinet, said last week: "I believe man-made climate change is one of the most serious threats that this country and this world faces."

Global warming was barely mentioned at all in the 2012 US election battle, until superstorm Sandy struck New York, prompting the city's then mayor, Michael Bloomberg, to endorse Barack Obama's candidacy because he would "lead on climate change".

Figueres said: "We are reminded that climate change events are for everyone, they're affecting everyone, they have much, much longer effects than a political cycle.

"Frankly, they're intergenerational, so morally we cannot afford to look at climate change from a partisan perspective."