‘Climate change is out of control’, UN says | First Thing

The average global air temperature hit new heights this week. Plus, new Twitter rules restrict US weather service

Good morning.

With the average global air temperature reaching the highest on record this week, the UN secretary general has declared that climate change is out of control".

The average global air temperature was 17.18C (62.9F) on Tuesday, surpassing the record of 17.01C reached on Monday, according to data collated by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP).

The University of Maine found that the daily average temperature for the seven-day period ending Wednesday was .04C (.08F) higher than any week in 44 years of record-keeping.

Cluster bombs pose great risk to civilians long after their use: while the bomblets are designed to detonate on hitting the ground, seriously injuring or killing anyone in the area, up to 40% of bomblets have failed to explode in some recent conflicts, essentially becoming undetonated landmines.

The indiscriminate destruction of cluster bombs has human rights groups saying that the use of them in populated areas is a violation of international humanitarian law.

More than 120 countries have signed the convention on cluster munitions, prohibiting the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of the weapons - but Russia, Ukraine and the US have all declined to sign the treaty.