The five-year mean global temperature has been flat for the last decade.

I’ve tried to be a straight scientist doing the science and reporting it as best I can.

The last time the world was three degrees warmer than today-which is what we expect later this century-sea levels were 25m higher. So that is what we can look forward to if we don’t act soon.

I have been described as the grandfather of climate change. In fact, I am just a grandfather and I do not want my grandchildren to say that grandpa understood what was happening but didn’t make it clear.

Only in the last few years did the science crystallize, revealing the urgency – our planet really is in peril. If we do not change course soon, we will hand our children a situation that is out of their control.

Scientists will say we can’t blame global warming for any single event. In a sense that’s right, but the fact that the frequency and intensity of these events is increasing you can blame on global warming.

Politicians think that if matters look difficult, compromise is a good approach. Unfortunately, nature and the laws of physics cannot compromise – they are what they are.

We have at most ten years – not ten years to decide upon action, but ten years to alter fundamentally the trajectory of global greenhouse emissions.

As you get more global warming, you should see an increase in the extremes of the hydrological cycle – droughts and floods and heavy precipitation.

It’s as certain that as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy, we will just keep burning them.