'Window narrowing' to meet 1.5C goal: senior UN climate official

A UN report on climate change released on Monday shows that the window to meet the goal of a 1.5-degree Celsius global warming limit is narrowing, a senior UN climate official told AFP.

The report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that the world will cross this key global warming limit in about a decade.

It "sets out in very, very stark terms where we are, but it also signals that there is still an opportunity with significant global effort to meet that 1.5 goal," Simon Stiell, head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), told AFP in Copenhagen.

"That window is narrowing, but the window is still there," he said, adding that "everyone" should work to fight global warming.

"To be more specific, we know that 80 percent of emissions are generated within the G20. That is the very, very clear starting point.

"They have 85 percent of global GDP. So the technology, the financial capacity to address the crisis resides there."