The UN Secretary General has warned that “life itself” will be imperilled if the world’s biggest carbon emitters such as the US and China do not make bigger efforts to combat climate change.

Speaking to leaders from more than 100 countries at the start of the UN’s conference on climate change in Madrid, António Guterres warned that unless countries provided additional commitments over the next year to curb emissions, the world faced a temperature rise above pre-industrial levels of more than the 1.5C target set for the end of the century in the 2016 Paris climate accord.

“If we do not urgently change our way of life we jeopardise life itself,” he said, noting that the last five years had been the hottest on record and that ice in Antarctica was now melting three times faster than a decade ago. According to the UN, the planet is currently on track for 3.2C of warming by the end of the century.