The fridge is completely empty. LEFT

Although the rise in the global temperature by 4 per cent predicted by many scientists may not sound like much, it is the difference between now and the last Ice Age, when huge glaciers covered Europe and most of Britain. Nobody knows (1) what would happen in a warmer world, but we (2) know some things. Heat a kettle and the (3) inside it expands. The (4) of the world has climbed more than half a degree this century, and the oceans have (5) by at least 10 cm.

But (6) as it takes several minutes for a kettle to begin warming, (7) it may have taken the ocean thirty years to swell. This (8) that the global warming we are now experiencing is a result only of the carbon dioxide we have dumped into the atmosphere (9) up to the 1960s. Since then, the (10) use of fossil fuels has increased rapidly.

Scientists (11) for the United nations and European governments have been warning that (12) the Dutch and the people of East Anglia will need to do will (13) to build more extensive sea defenses. Many of the world’s great cities are (14) risk, because they are (15) located / situated at sea level. Miami, (16) entirely built on a sandbank, could be (17) away. But the effect of rising sea levels will be much (18) for the developing countries. With a meter rise in sea levels, 200 million could become homeless.

There are other fears too, (19) to a recent United Nations report. The plight of the hungry in northern Africa could (20), as rainfall in the Sahara and beyond is reduced by 20 per cent.