UK’s Johnson warns world leaders as climate summit begins

By SETH BORENSTEIN
AP Science Writer

GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has opened a global climate summit, saying the world is strapped to a “doomsday device.” Johnson likened the Earth’s position to that of fictional secret agent James Bond — strapped to a bomb that will destroy the planet and trying to work out how to defuse it. He told leaders Monday that “we are in roughly the same position” — only now the “ticking doomsday device” is real and not fiction. He was kicking off the world leaders’ summit portion of a U.N. climate conference. The meeting is aimed at getting agreement to curb carbon emissions fast enough to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius below pre-industrial levels.