AS nation states assert sovereignty and divide territories, they should urgently unite not to win war and alliances against each other but to ensure that the land, seas and skies they are fighting and killing for will still be a habitable space in time. Some countries are waging wars against each other when the real and common enemy is climate change. States at war and their allies are burning their economies to destroy lives and development rather than contributing to the ecology and humanity that they are collectively bound to protect.

In the words of James Hansen, the former director of NASA, 'the science is clear: climate change is real, it is happening now, and it is caused by human activities.'