The next two years must see major progress towards global low carbon and sustainable development.

That’s the view of Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary at United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), who says there is “no safe hiding place” for any country, developing or developed.

Countries across the globe have so far signed up to the Paris Climate Change Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals “to turn humanity back from the cliff edge of extreme climate change and environmental collapse”.

Ms Espinosa believes the challenge is like none that has been seen before as it encompasses “every nation and every person”.

She adds: “The rich and secure for a while may dodge the direct impacts better than the poor and vulnerable but their ultimate fate will be the same, if we do not succeed. The time to step up and accelerate common action on climate and sustainable development has come for two fundamental reasons.

“First and most decisively, the signals from planet Earth are telling us that the trajectory toward uncontrolled global warming is still rising… Second, the multiple and immediate challenges which countries now face cannot be allowed to dilute the unprecedented depth and breadth of global political will and the momentum to act by governments, cities, business and civil society that was captured in the UN climate and sustainability agreements.”

The UNFCCC warns climate change is emerging as one of the biggest threats to global security.