Canada's withdrawal comes ahead of a major convention in Bonn, Germany, "to carry out the first ever comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of desertification, land degradation and drought", the UN Environment Programme said.

BBC: Canada 'only nation to leave UN drought agreement'

Ministers and officials will be coming to Brussels fresh from an informal two-day session at UN climate convention headquarters in Bonn, where they've heard United Nations Environment Programme chief scientist Joseph Alcamo outline a few key issues.

BBC: Climate ship plots course through the battering waves

Meanwhile, participants for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change prepared for meetings in Bonn, grappling with a convergence of new data from the International Energy Agency suggesting that humanity will be unable to prevent temperatures from exceeding the catastrophic threshold of a 2 degree Centigrade increase across the planet.

FORBES: One Week on Earth