"No standstill in global warming"

Delegates at the 190-nation UN Climate Conference in the Peruvian capital, Lima, were told that 2014 is on track to become the hottest year on record, or will at least join the ranks of being one of the warmest.

The UN made the announcement on Wednesday, which added urgency to the issue of tackling global warming.

The UN's weather agency, the World Meteorological Organization, commented on the latest findings, which will be presented during the climate talks.

"There is no standstill in global warming," WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said in a statement. "What is particularly unusual and alarming this year are the high temperatures of vast areas of the ocean surface."

2014 set to go on the boil

According to the WMO, average sea surface temperatures hit record highs in 2014.

Meanwhile, on dry land, the UN weather agency listed extremes of weather, including flash floods in Bangladesh and Britain, and droughts in China and the US state of California.

The WMO made its estimates for this year based on readings from January to October and put the global average temperature at 0.57 Celsius (1.03 Fahrenheit) above average, the same as the record hot year of 2010.

If temperatures stay above normal for the rest of the year, according to the UN weather agency, "2014 will likely be the hottest on record, ahead of 2010, 2005 and 1998."

The head of the UN's Climate Change Secretariat, Christiana Figueres, called the heat "bad news," saying that it displayed the urgent need for action to limit rising greenhouse gas emissions.

"The urgency is actually to get ... hopefully within this decade, to the turning point to start cutting emissions," she said.

Climate change: Storm in a tea cup?

There had been criticism over the years that, in fact, temperatures had not risen much since 1998, despite reports of surging greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate skeptics often point to the perceived hiatus in the temperature rise since 1998, which was an exceptionally hot year, to support their claims that man-made warming is not a big problem.

But Figueres said the underlying temperature trend was up, decade by decade.

"Every single one of us can look out the window and see the effect of climate change where we live," she said. "There is not one country that is exempt."

Blue planet blows hot and cold

According to the WMO assessment, some parts of the world had been cooler than average including large areas of the US, Canada and central Russia.

Meanwhile, most of the world had experienced temperatures above average, with heat waves in South Africa, Australia and Argentina in January, and in large parts of South America in October.

The Lima talks were working on a deal to limit climate change, due to be agreed in Paris in a year's time.

Germany pledges to cut emissions

Germany announced on Wednesday a cash boost for measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions in a bid to meet its 2020 climate target.

Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said the government was increasing subsidies for energy efficiency measures to 3.4 billion euros ($4.2 billion) from 2 billion euros a year.

Berlin pledged to reduce its carbon dioxide output by 40 percent by the end of the decade, compared to levels in the 1990s.

Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks also said that to achieve this target Germany needed to triple its current carbon-cutting effort.

She said Wednesday's announcement sent a clear message to the Lima climate talks that "you can rely on Germany."

lw/mkg (AP, AFP, Reuters)