Climate summit calls for urgent action after Australia's fire-hit summer

Forceful declaration calls for governments to set short-term zero emissions target to avoid catastrophic warming

The megafires of Australia's summer "are a harbinger of life and death on a hotter Earth", a climate summit has said in a forceful declaration for urgent and dramatic climate action.

The Climate Emergency Summit, held in Melbourne this week and of which Guardian Australia was a partner, released a declaration saying the warming world was a clear threat to Australian society and civilisation.