Leaders at the Global Climate Summit Highlight the Rising Toll of Warming

and Reporting from Belem, Brazil In Spain, intense heat waves and floods in recent years. In Namibia, higher temperatures have resulted in drought and widespread hunger. And in Haiti, Hurricane Melissa, which was , last week killed more than 40 people. World leaders shared vivid stories about the increasingly severe effects of a warming planet on Friday, the second day of the United Nations climate summit in Belem, Brazil. Forests are vanishing, water levels are rising and, in turn, peoples livelihoods are being disrupted, Salah Jama, the deputy prime Minister of Somalia, said. In a nutshell, we are living on a planet in crisis. Politicians, diplomats, scientists and business executives are gathering for the event, , during another year of record heat and extreme weather that scientists say is being worsened by human-caused climate change. This week, the United Nations from keeping global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, compared with preindustrial levels. That was a goal that virtually every country agreed to 10 years ago as part of the Paris climate agreement. We are having trouble retrieving the article content. Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and your Times account, or for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? . Want all of The Times? .