World leaders ignore David Attenborough at their peril | Larry Eliott

Nations should heed global warming warning - and also take lesson from Bretton Woods in 1944Fragile and delicate. The adjectives said it all. The mood at the spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank was sombre. The global economy has weakened in the past six months and the Fund thinks the risks are skewed to the downside.The caution is justified, even though in some respects the outlook is less gloomy than the Fund suggests. For a start, there are some tentative signs that activity has bottomed out. The removal of the threat of higher interest rates from central banks has provided a boost to confidence. A substantial package of tax cuts and spending increases has arrested the growth deceleration in China. Two of the threats highlighted by the IMF in its world economic outlook - a full-blown trade war between China and the US, and a disruptive Brexit - look less serious than they did a month ago. Continue reading...