‘Decisive decade’ to tackle climate crisis’: Biden at COP26
Major economies including China, India and Brazil face pressure to toughen their commitments on issues like coal and deforestation
Global leaders attending the COP26 summit in Glasgow are set for tense discussions over how we tackle climate change.
Major economies including China, India and Brazil face pressure to toughen their commitments on issues like coal and deforestation, reports the BBC.
The goal is to keep warming limited to 1.5C, or at worst 2C, by 2100 but we are on track for 2.7C - which the UN says would result in "climate catastrophe". Less-developed countries are calling on richer nations to give them promised funds to deal with destructive impacts.
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Here are the latest developments from COP26 -
India has "spared no efforts in fulfilling its duty" to combating climate change: Modi
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that his country has "spared no efforts in fulfilling its duty" to combating climate change.
India is the world's fourth biggest emitter of carbon dioxide after China, the US and the EU.
In 2019 India was responsible for 2,597 megatonnes of CO2. But with India having a huge population, its rate of emissions per capita is significantly lower than other economies near the top of that list.
India emitted 1.9 tonnes of CO2 per head of population in 2019 - by contrast the figures for the US and Russia were 15.5 and 12.5 tonnes respectively.
'We must coordinate agendas on climate, biodiversity and oceans': Macron
"We must coordinate agendas on climate, biodiversity and oceans," French President Macron said.
Bangladesh PM Hasina tells rich world to fulfil funding pledges
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told rich world leaders on Monday they must fulfill both their own carbon emission cutting pledges and keep their promises to help developing countries de-carbonise.
Merkel urges better pricing on carbon dioxide emissions
In her last COP address as chancellor, Germany's Angela Merkel said government actions alone will not be sufficient in the fight against climate change and pleaded for better pricing on carbon dioxide emissions.
“What we need is a comprehensive transformation of the way we live, work and do business. And that's why I want to make a clear plea here for the pricing of carbon emissions. Of CO2 emissions. With such pricing, which we already have in the European Union, which is being introduced in China, and which needs to be developed with many others around the world, we can further our industry, our economy, find the best and most efficient ways for technology to get to climate neutrality," she said on Monday in Glasgow, Scotland, reports the CNN.
“It is about changing our economy, working, and that is a comprehensive transformation, and then we will know how best to arrange CO2-free mobility, CO2-free industry and CO2-free processes of our life," she added.
Merkel urged leaders to be more ambitious.
China's Xi calls for stronger action on climate change
China's President Xi Jinping on Monday called on all parties to take stronger action to jointly tackle the climate challenge, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
In a written statement delivered at the COP26 UN climate change conference in Glasgow, which Xi is not attending in person, the Chinese president also urged developed countries to not only do more but also support developing nations to do better on climate change, Xinhua said.
Climate change is ravaging the world: Biden tells world leaders
US President Joe Biden said COP26 in Glasgow should be the "kick off" of a decade of ambition in terms of tackling climate change.
He pinted towards natural disasters across the US and other regions of the world in the past year.
"None of us can escape the worst that is yet to come if we fail to seize this moment," he said.
Climate change is ravaging the world,"Biden warned.
Barbados PM warns of 'death sentence' for island nations
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley delivered a stark warning on the effects of an increase in global temperatures on island nations like hers due to rising sea levels and more extreme weather.
1.5C, she told fellow leaders, "is what we need to survive", while "two degrees is a death sentence".
"We don't want that death sentence and we have come here today to say 'try harder'."
She pointed out that during the Covid pandemic central banks managed to find $9 trillion to pump into the global economy and said $500 billion a year for 20 years could be put into a trust to finance the transition. She said the failure of rich nations to come up with the full climate finance promised for those living on the frontline of climate change could be measured in “lives and livelihoods” and that this was "immoral and unjust".
Erdogan skips Glasgow climate summit in security dispute
President Tayyip Erdogan cancelled plans to attend the global climate conference in Glasgow on Monday because Britain failed to meet Turkey's demands on security arrangements, Turkish media quoted him as saying.
Heads of state and government from around the world are attending the COP26 summit, regarded as critical to averting the most disastrous effects of climate change.
Erdogan had been expected to join them in Scotland after attending the G20 summit in Rome at the weekend, but instead landed back in Turkey shortly after midnight on Monday.
It is either stability or a brutal world: David Attenborough
Sir David Attenborough spoke about how human relationship with the Earth is defined by a single number - the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere - a graph charts its movements over thousands of years.
He said that when it bounced wildly and global temperatures fluctuated, it was a "brutal an unpredictable world" in which our ancestors could only exist in tiny numbers at times. Then it stabilised and the climate became benign, not varying by more than plus or minus one degree.
"Everything we’ve achieved in the last 10,000 years was enabled by the stability in this time," he said.
The burning of fossil fuels and other industrial activities jeopardises all this, he said.
"We are already in trouble, the stability we all depend on is breaking," Sir David added.
"This story is one of inequality as well as instability. Those who’ve done the least to cause this problem are being the hardest hit."
Cost of inaction is far greater than cost of prevention: Prince Charles at COP26
Prince Charles said that the Covid pandemic has shown "just how devastating" cross-border crises can be.
The Prince of Wales said that "time has quite literally run out" and says "we know what we must do".
"We have to reduce emissions urgently and take action to tackle the carbon already in the atmosphere," he said, gadding that putting a value on carbon to make carbon capture solutions more economical is "absolutely critical".
The heir to the throne warns that "efforts cannot be a series of independent initiatives running parallel" and said the scale and scope of the situation calls for a global systems level solution.
"My plea today is for countries to come together to create the environment that enables every sector of industry to take the action required. We know this will take trillions not millions of dollars," he said.
He said that to help countries burdened by growing levels of debt we "need a vast military style campaign to marshal the strength of the global private sector".
Prince Charles added that "the cost of inaction is far greater than cost of prevention" and urges world leaders to find practical ways of overcoming differences so that "we can all get down to work together to save this precious planet".
'We are digging our own graves': UN chief at COP26
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in his opening remarks at COP26 has said that "the more we dig the earth, we are digging our own graves."
"Either we stop it or it stops us. And it's time to say, enough. Enough of killing ourselves with carbon. Enough of treating nature like a toilet. Enough of burning and drilling and mining our way deeper. We are digging our own graves."
Johnson cites James Bond - and says the clock has run down
UK PM Boris Johnson began by welcoming everybody to COP and Glasgow.
He made the comparison between world leaders and James Bond, saying that the spy often ends his films fighting to stop a force from ending the world.
"The tragedy is that this is not a movie and the doomsday device is real," he said.
He said that two degrees more to global temperatures will jeopardise food supplies, three degrees more will bring more wildfires and cyclones, while four degrees and "we say goodbye to whole cities".
"The longer we fail to act the worse it gets and the higher the price when we are eventually forced by catastrophe to act," he said .
Biden arrives in Glasgow
US President Joe Biden has arriced at the COP26 venue in Glasgow, after flying from the G20 summit in Rome via Edinburgh Airport.
He travelled between Scotland's two biggest cities in a motorcade.
As he arrived, he was pictured greeting UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
Opening ceremony begins
With the sound of the bagpipes the opening ceremony of the COP26 summit began in Glasgow.
Skye native Brìghde Chaimbeul, 22, performed an arrangement of traditional melodies ahead of Boris Johnson's speech.
Biden touches down in Scotland
US President Joe Biden has arrived in Scotland.
He touched down in Air Force One at Edinburgh Airport, from where he will head on to Glasgow.
Climate finance could make or break the COP26 summit. Here's why
At the UN climate conference, expect one theme to drown out the cacophony of pledges from countries and companies around the world: money.
The COP26 summit, which began on Sunday in Glasgow, will attempt to complete the rules to implement the 2015 Paris Agreement - which aims to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial times - and secure more ambitious commitments from countries to meet its targets.
Underpinning progress on both issues is money. Climate finance refers to money that richer nations - responsible for the bulk of the greenhouse gas emissions heating the planet - give to poorer nations to help them cut their own emissions and adapt to the deadly storms, rising seas and droughts worsened by global warming.
'War-like footing' needed to tackle climate crisis- Prince Charles
While addressing the opening ceremony of the COP26 summit, Charles. the prince of Wales will tell that a "war like footing "is needed to tackle the climate crisis.
Prince Charles is expected to call for a "vast military- style campaign" for channeling the resources of the global private sector.
The prince will be the most senior royal at COP26 after doctors told the Queen to avoid the summit and rest.
Vietnam targeting carbon emission neutrality by 2050, minister says
Vietnam is targeting carbon emission neutrality by 2050, the country's Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien said on Monday.
"Vietnam embarks on a roadmap to reduce coal-fired power right after this summit," Dien said from Glasgow where he is attending the United Nations COP26 summit.
Britain to back $1B World Bank green loan to India, sources say
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to announce a sovereign guarantee for a $1 billion World Bank loan for India to develop green infrastructure, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Monday.
The announcement is likely to be made during the United Nations COP26 summit in Glasgow, Scotland, which has been billed as a make-or-break chance to save the planet from the most calamitous effects of climate change.
"The UK's biggest finance offer to India at COP26 will be a $1 billion sovereign guarantee for additional World Bank lending for green infra," said one of the sources. They declined to the named as they were not authorised to talk to the media on the subject.
World at one minute to midnight over climate change: Boris Johnson
The world is at "one minute to midnight", having run down the clock on waiting to combat climate change, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said.
Johnson was speaking as world leaders arrive for the landmark COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow, reports the BBC.
He said leaders needed to move from "aspiration to action" to slow global warming; and added the summit was a "critical" moment for him, and said an ambitious outcome was still "in the balance".
Global climate talks open to ever more daunting challenge
World leaders began arriving on Monday at a UN conference critical to averting the most disastrous effects of climate change, their challenge made even more daunting by the failure of major industrial nations to agree ambitious new commitments.
The COP26 conference in the Scottish city of Glasgow opens a day after the G20 economies failed to commit to a 2050 target to halt net carbon emissions - a deadline widely cited as necessary to prevent the most extreme global warming.
Instead, their talks in Rome only recognised "the key relevance" of halting net emissions "by or around mid-century", set no timetable for phasing out coal at home and watered down promises to cut emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas many times more powerful than carbon dioxide.
Scotland already halfway to net zero - Sturgeon
Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has been defending her government's "credible action" on tackling climate change, despite missing targets on emissions for two years running.
Sturgeon said she is not suggesting Scotland doesn't have work to do.
But, she said, with 97% of electricity consumed in Scotland being generated from renewable sources, "that puts us way ahead of most other countries across the world".
We need face-to-face talks - UK foreign secretary
UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said it is right the world leaders are travelling to Glasgow as it is important to have people talking face-to-face for "crunch negotiations".
Asked about what the UK may be willing to do if countries do not live up to their promises, the foreign secretary says the key thing for these two weeks is to get those commitments in the first place.
She said she doesn't believe this is a "council of despair" and while she says it is "touch and go" she believes a difference can still be made.
World leaders are going to have to make some tough decisions about what's going on in their own countries, they are going to have to commit to things they didn't necessarily want to when they arrived at the conference and that's why it is really important that we do have people face-to-face so that we can make a real difference," she added.
Biden to tout 'largest investment' in climate in Glasgow
President Joe Biden on Monday will try to assure world leaders that the United States can keep its promise to slash greenhouse gas emissions by more than half by the end of the decade, even as the key policies to ensure those reductions remain uncertain, his top climate aides said.
Biden will join leaders from over 100 countries in Glasgow for the start of the COP26 climate conference, which kicks off on the heels of the G20 summit in Rome that concluded with a statement that urged "meaningful and effective" action on climate change but left huge work for negotiators to ensure an ambitious outcome.
National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy said Biden was committed to delivering on that goal in large part through a key budget bill that would unleash $555 billion in climate spending that awaits a vote in Congress after months of fraught domestic negotiations.
Global climate talks open to cries of betrayal, blame
A UN conference seen critical to averting the most disastrous effects of climate change launches amid acrimony on Monday after major industrialised nations were accused of dragging their feet on ambitious new commitments.
The COP26 conference in the Scottish city of Glasgow comes a day after G20 big economies failed to commit to a 2050 deadline for halting net carbon emissions - a mark widely cited as a condition for preventing the most extreme global warming.
Instead, their talks in Rome only recognised "the key relevance" of halting net emissions "by or around mid-century", set no timetable for phasing out coal at home and watered down promises to cut emissions of methane, another greenhouse gas.
