The world’s hopes for a sustainable future depend on what happens in Paris over the next two weeksThe current front-runner for best slogan for the Paris climate change summit has to be “there is no planet B”; as for images, it is hard to imagine one more potent than the thousands of pairs of shoes laid in tidy lines in the Place de la République that symbolise the march climate activists had scheduled for Sunday then banned for fear of a repeat of the terrorist attack of a fortnight ago. However equivocal some of the political leadership sometimes appears, the popular movement for greening the economy is in good heart.This is the 21st UN conference of the parties on climate change, better known as COP, and there are signs of a new maturity that might be the best omen for the future. It is easy to forget that this is an unprecedented attempt at global cooperation, one which has not only moved from event to process, but from protest to movement. For Paris is not only about world leaders trying to find an agreement acceptable to nearly 200 countries for whom the consequences of global warming will be existentially different. It is now also about the place of non-state players, from the indigenous peoples of South America to the world’s most sophisticated cities, and from the individual decisions that each of us makes to the clean energy initiative being launched on Monday by one of the world’s richest men, Bill Gates. One sign of this maturity is the demand from Laurent Fabius, the French foreign affairs minister in charge of this COP, that a deal on a final text should be agreed by next weekend. That would mean the last week of the conference was spent discussing how to put the final communiqué into action. Continue reading...

Tens of thousands of environmental campaigners march through central London on Sunday on the eve of the Paris climate change talks. Jeremy Corbyn, Labour leader, praises those who braved the cold to turn out at the march. Organisers said the London event attracted even more people once it had been announced that the Paris demonstration would be cancelled

Actor Emma Thompson discusses why protecting the Arctic is so important for the planet and the human race. Thompson speaks to ITV news reporter Richard Pallot as she takes part in a demonstration outside Shell’s London headquarters on Sunday, ahead of the Paris global climate change talks on Monday

Climate scientist says the world has come a long way since the failed Copenhagen climate conference and now accepts the urgency of tackling rising temperaturesThe world has “come late” to realising the potential devastation of climate change, Prof Tim Flannery says, but the former Australian of the Year believes there is now a global understanding of the need to cut emissions “hard and fast” to avoid calamitous global warming.Flannery, also formerly the chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council, said world leaders were more committed now to thrashing out a binding global climate agreement than they were at the Copenhagen climate summit five years ago. Continue reading...

Prime minister derides Labor’s pledge to cut 2005 carbon emissions by 45% by 2030 as unrealistic and ‘a political rather than an environmental statement’Related: Bill Shorten lays out bold climate aims as Malcolm Turnbull heads to ParisLabor’s target on climate change is “heroic” and aimed at making a political point rather than helping the environment, the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, said. Continue reading...

Australian PM urges his fellow leaders to sign up to a climate change statement and agrees to contribute $1m to help poorer nations respond to its effectsAustralia’s prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has encouraged other Commonwealth leaders to send a powerful signal to other nations that strong climate change action is needed.Related: Australia must help Pacific islands at Paris climate summit, says PNG leader Continue reading...

Vivienne Westwood, Emma Thompson and Charlotte Church, alongside activists, politicians, teachers and businessmen, tell us why they will be joining thousands in cities around the world calling for action on climate change

Despite rhetoric about protecting our planet for future generations, children and human rights have been largely absent from COP21 negotiationsMillions of lives are being turned upside down by life-threatening extreme weather. Communities are no stranger to the disastrous impacts of climate change, but this year’s El Niño is wreaking havoc. Although the warming of the Pacific Ocean is a natural phenomenon, climate change is increasing in the intensity and destructiveness it unleashes in the form of floods, droughts and typhoons. Unicef has warned that an estimated 11 million children are at risk from hunger, disease and lack of water (pdf) in eastern and southern Africa alone, and many more face record-smashing droughts and floods across swathes of Latin America, Asia and the Pacific.Children, particularly the most destitute, are disproportionately vulnerable to climate change. Climate-related disasters and changing weather patterns increase the risk of malnutrition, vector-borne diseases such as malaria, and water and food-borne diarrhoea – all major killers of children who, according to the World Health Organisation, suffer a much greater burden of these climate-related diseases than adults. Continue reading...

Increasing numbers of people are predicted to migrate as a result of rising sea levels and extreme weather events. We must treat them as victims not threatsWe are all entering uncharted waters as the effects of climate change begin to create categories of migrants that have no precedent: migrants rendered stateless after their island nations disappear; migrants constituting a vast, roaming “environmental refugee” population; migrants fleeing climate-intensified wars and violence like that in Syria and Central America.