By Pilita Clark and Andrew England in Durban

He was young, he was from French-speaking Senegal, and his English was excellent. But at the end of yet another briefing in English at the UN climate talks this week, he made an urgent plea. “This subject is so technical it makes it very difficult for those who speak English as a second language,” he said. “So please could we have translators at the next briefing?”

Good luck, muttered a nearby native English speaker. “We can’t understand most of it either.”