UN climate chief warns political division is undermining fight against ‘economic security emergency’

The head of the UN's climate body has warned that treating global warming as a partisan issue is dangerously out of step with reality, as he set out a stark account of the economic toll climate change is already inflicting on Europe.Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), told the European Parliament's environment committee in Brussels on Thursday that climate change had become “a continent-wide economic security emergency,” pointing to a summer of extreme heat that has killed tens of thousands and battered infrastructure, businesses and economies across Europe.Climate ‘culture war’“Climate is sometimes seen as a partisan issue: as territory in culture wars," Mr. Stiell said. "That is palpably false.”He said the summer's heat had forced mass evacuations, shut down power stations, disrupted trade routes and driven down crop yields, pushing food prices higher still to come. Elsewhere, he cited devastating floods in the Himalayas and heat-driven power outages and water shortages in North Africa, warning that climate impacts were increasingly fuelling forced migration both within and across borders.One study, he said, put the cost of...