7th monthly heat record in row smashed amid Bonn climate meeting

Governments began work on Monday ona rule book to implement the 2015 Paris Agreement to limitglobal warming, with the United Nations urging stronger actionafter a string of record-smashing monthly temperatures.

NASA said overthe weekend that last month was the warmestApril in statistics dating back to the 19th century, the seventhmonth in a row to break temperature records.

The meeting of government experts is the first since 195nations reached a deal in Paris in December to limit climate
change by shifting from fossil fuels to green energies by 2100.

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It will begin to work out the detail of the plan.

"The Paris Agreement represents the foundations ... Now wehave to raise the walls, the roof of a common home," FrenchEnvironment Minister Segolene Royal told a news conference.

The agreement sets targets for shifting the world to greenenergies by 2100 but is vague, for instance, about how
governments will report and monitor their national plans to curbgreenhouse gas emissions.

Many government delegates at the start of the May 16-26 U.N.talks, in Bonn, Germany, expressed concern about risingtemperatures and extremes events such as damage to tropicalcoral reefs, wildfires in Canada or drought in India.

El Nino magnified by greenhouse gases

"We have no other option but to accelerate" action to limitwarming, Christiana Figueres, the U.N. climate chief, told a
news conference, asked about the NASA data.

She said record temperatures were partly caused by a naturalwarming effect of an El Nino weather event in the Pacific Ocean,magnified by the build-up of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

She said national promises for curbing greenhouse gases putthe world on track for a rise in temperatures of between 2.5 and3 C (4.5 to 5.4 Fahrenheit), well above an agreedceiling in the Paris text of "well below" 2C (3.6F) with atarget of 1.5C (2.7F).

"Certainly we are not yet on the path" for the Paristemperature targets, she said.

Last month, the Paris Agreement was signed by 175governments at a New York ceremony, the most ever for an openingday of a U.N. deal, and including top emitters China and theUnited States.

The agreement will enter into force once 55 nationsrepresenting 55 per cent of world emissions have formallyratified.

Royal said she would submit a bill on Tuesday to theFrench National Assembly seeking ratification.

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