In recent weeks, the world has witnessed the sort of extreme weather conditions scientists have long warned about but hoped would never happen. Records have tumbled, from heatwaves in Europe and Japan, to deadly wildfires in Greece and California and an increasingly desperate drought in eastern Australia. Record floods also struck south-western Japan from late June to the middle of last month, killing over 200 people.

Every year of late seems more extreme than the last, showing mankind is far from the path needed to limit the damage to livelihoods, homes and economies from a hotter and wilder world, the United Nations says.