UN climate official wants ‘strong’ response to record heat

Christiana Figueres, the United Nations’ top climate change official, said data showing that 2012 was the hottest year on record in the United States should fuel efforts to curb global warming.

“There must be a strong policy and civil society response to the fact that 2012 was the hottest year on record in the US,” said Figueres, the executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, on Twitter on Wednesday.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported Tuesday that 2012’s average temperatures blew away the previous record, set in 1998, by a full degree Fahrenheit, according to records dating back to the late 1800s.

Figueres is coordinating international talks aimed at crafting a new global greenhouse gas emissions pact in 2015 that would come into force in 2020.

But the global talks have moved slowly, and appeared on the brink of collapse multiple times in recent years.

Negotiators face a tough slog to reach a deal that, unlike the Kyoto accords (which the U.S. never joined), imposes requirements on fast-developing, major emitters including China and India, as well as developed countries.

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