Cold, hard facts should guide climate policy, says United Nation's chief

The head of the United Nations called on Monday for scientists to serve up cold, hard facts to push governments into making policies that curb climate change before a key global warming threshold is passed.

His comments came as experts and officials from around the world gathered for a week-long meeting in the Swiss Alpine town of Interlaken to finalise the last of seven reports issued by the global body's panel of top scientists since the Paris climate accord was forged in 2015.

In a video address to delegates, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change could not come at a more pivotal time.

Our world is at a crossroads and our planet is in the crosshairs, he said. We are nearing the point of no return; of overshooting the internationally agreed limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) of global warming.

That threshold, agreed in Paris almost eight years ago and measured against average temperatures duri