A team of climate experts has ranked the nine most fragile and vulnerable regions on the planet, warning they are in danger of passing ‘tipping points,’ beyond which they will not recover, before the end of the century.

Its assessment warns it may already be too late to save Arctic sea ice and the Greenland ice sheet, which they regard as the most immediately in peril. The next most vulnerable area is the Amazon rainforest, where reduced rainfall threatens to claim large areas of trees that will not re-establish themselves, warns The Guardian. The scientists also expressed concerns over the Boreal forests in the north, and have predicted that El Niño, the climate system which has a profound impact on weather from Africa to North America, will become more intense. The scientists are so concerned they have called for an early warning system to monitor each of these fragile ecosystems.
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The consensus at a summit on sustainable development in Delhi, India, is that everyone – individuals, communities and businesses – should act now on climate change. The wealthier nations that were responsible for most emissions should play a greater role, especially by transferring technology and financing mitigation in the developing world, participants said. Several speakers stressed the importance of reaching an equitable post-Kyoto protocol at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change sponsored meeting at Copenhagen in 2009, says an Earthtimes report. Business Day notes that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said at the Delhi meeting that India would unveil in June a national plan to deal with the threat of global warming, but it would not commit to any emission targets that risked slowing economic growth.
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