Afternoon summary
The conference is over for today. So it’s goodbye from me for now. We’ll be back tomorrow morning, but here’s a roundup of what’s happened this afternoon:
- Biden apologises for Trump quitting the Paris UN climate agreement: “We will demonstrate to the world the United States is not only back at the table but hopefully leading by the power of our example,” he said.
- China’s president, Xi Jinping, called for developed countries to “provide support to help developing countries do better” in dealing with the climate crisis, in a written statement that failed to make any new significant pledges. Xi, along with Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil and Vladimir Putin of Russia, decided not to appear in person at the summit.
- India has pledged to target of net zero emissions by 2070. He also committed to India getting half of its energy from renewable resources by 2030. Modi demanded developed countries make $1tn available as climate finance.
- While not attending the conference in person, Bolsonaro claimed in a speech today that when it comes to fighting climate change, Brazil had always been part of the solution, not the problem.
- Finally, it emerged later in the day that Boris Johnson would be flying back from the Cop26 climate conference on a private plane rather than getting the train. Johnson flew into Cop26 in Glasgow from Rome after attending the G20 meeting of world leaders. Prince Charles also flew from Rome to Glasgow on a private plane separately from the prime minister.
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My colleague Nina Lakhani is at a protest in Kelvingrove Park. She says hundreds of climate activists from Scotland and across the world have been prevented from holding a protest outside the Kelvingrove museum where world leaders will be dining tonight.
Police have blocked every road into the Park and the lights have been switched off making it dangerous for walking with wet leaves covering the ground. Still not to be deterred, protesters armed with banners and drums are trying to find away to the main road where the leaders will Drive past. There’s a huge police presence. When asked how residents could get to their homes, one cop advised ‘they come back tomorrow’.
Cat Scothorne from Glasgow Calls Out Polluters said:
“How dare these world leaders have a fancy dinner on the first night of COP26, as if they have something to be proud of. The continued support of the fossil fuel industry by the heads of state, particularly in the global North, is killing millions of people. The consequences of climate change are faced by people not in power, but those mainly in the global South and people on sites where extraction occurs, yet the perpetrators sit in luxury, insulated from it all.”
Angela Mendes, daughter of murdered Amazon rainforest defender, Chico Mendes said:
“The Amazon is burning while leaders share toasts by the Clyde. It’s essential that real action is taken to stop the destruction of our rainforests and respect the people who live here. We have been blocked from being at the meetings but we will not be held hostage by nationalist governments. We know how to live in harmony with nature - our rights must be respected!”
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Downing Street has defended Boris Johnson’s decision to return from the Cop26 climate change summit by plane, citing “significant time constraints”.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman confirmed Mr Johnson will fly back to London from Glasgow when the leaders’ conference section of the summit ends this week, PA Media reported.
Pressed on why the Prime Minister could not go by train for a journey within the UK, the spokesman said it was important he was able to travel round the country while facing “significant time constraints”.
He said the private charter jet he is using for the flight uses a special mix of “sustainable” aviation fuel and is one of the most carbon-efficient aircraft of its size, while the emissions will also be offset. It produces less than half the emissions produced by the RAF Voyager which the Prime Minister sometimes uses for foreign travel. The spokesman said:
Our approach to tackling climate change is to use technology so that we do not have to change how we use modes of transport, rather we use technology on things like electric vehicles so that we can still get to net zero. That has very much been at the core of our approach.”
It is important that the Prime Minister is able to move round the country and obviously we face significant time constraints. The plane the Prime Minister used on his travels is one of the most carbon-efficient planes of its size in the world. It produces 50% less CO2 emissions than, for example, the larger, Voyager plane.
It uses a specific type of fuel that is a blend of 35% sustainable aviation fuel and 65% normal fuel, which is the maximum amount allowed.
Mr Johnson used the aircraft, operated by Titan Airways, to fly out to the G20 summit in Rome on Friday and then carried on to Glasgow on Sunday.
On India’s pledge to reach net zero emissions by 2070, eminent climate economist Prof Nicholas Stern, at the London School of Economics, has said:
“This was a very significant moment for the summit. [The action] might mean that India’s annual emissions of greenhouse gases could peak by 2030. This demonstrates real leadership from a country whose emissions per capita are about one-third of the global average. The rich world must respond [and] deliver a strong increase in international climate finance.”
In response to President Biden’s speech at COP26, Thomas Damassa, Oxfam America’s associate director for Climate Change, urged the US and other rich countries to ramp up investments toward the $100 billion promised every year to help poorer nations adapt to climate change and reduce emissions.
Additionally, rich countries must find a way forward to address climate impacts in vulnerable countries and establish a new funding mechanism for loss and damage. Back in Washington, the US must back up its global climate commitments with congressional action. The time has come to end the chokehold fossil fuels have on our economy by ending subsidies that allow fossil fuel companies to profit even more from climate destruction.
My colleagues Oliver Milman and Nina Lakhani have now published an update on Biden’s speech this afternoon.
It includes reports of an apology from Biden about Donald Trump:
At a side event, Biden also effectively apologised for his predecessor. “I guess I shouldn’t apologize, but I do apologize for the fact that the United States – the last administration – pulled out of the Paris accords and put us sort of behind the eight ball,” Biden said.
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Xi Jinping makes no major climate pledges in written Cop26 address
Meanwhile, China has called on developed countries to “provide support to help developing countries do better” in dealing with the climate crisis, in a written statement to the Cop26 climate conference that fails to make any new significant pledges.
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India to target net zero emissions by 2070
India will meet a target of net zero emissions by 2070, the country’s prime minister Narendra Modi has told the Cop26 global climate summit. This was one of five pledges he listed at the world leaders’ summit at the UN conference in Glasgow. The others included that India will increase its non fossil energy capacity to 500 GW by 2030 and it will get half of its energy from renewable resources by the same date. He also pledged that India will reduce its projected carbon emissions by one billion tonnes between now and 2030, and reduce the carbon intensity of its economy by 45%.
Some commentators on Twitter saying India should be given financial support to bring that 2070 date forward.
#India announces #NetZero. Some say 2070 is too late, but given China´s 2060 date and the 2050 dates by most #OECD economies, it is more than fair. India's cumulative emissions would still be far lower than OECD & China.
— Sony Kapoor (@SonyKapoor) November 1, 2021
OECD should offer generous finance to bring date forward! https://t.co/nIkAj7C1wc
It’s also brought some much-needed optimism to the conference for others at the end of day 1.
Another big chunk of global economy now has a net zero emissions target, thanks to India's commitment. Few of these targets are ambitious enough, but genuinely staggering progress compared to even three years ago. And the experience to date is targets can and do move forward.
— James Murray (@James_BG) November 1, 2021
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This was the full doomsday quote from Boris Johnson earlier:
It’s one minute to midnight on the doomsday clock and we need to act now. If we don’t get serious about climate change today, it will be too late for our children to get serious about it tomorrow. We can get real on coal, cars, cash and trees. We have the technology to deactivate that doomsday ticking device. We all talk about what we’re going to do in 2050, or 2060.... the average age of this conclave of leaders is over 60. The children that will judge us are children not yet born, and their children... if we fail they will not forgive us. They will know that Glasgow was that historic turning point when history failed to turn. They will judge us with bitterness and resentment.
Some interesting reaction to Boris Johnson’s James Bond moment in his speech this morning, where he drew an analogy between a ticking bomb that Bond must defuse in a film and the situation humanity finds itself in.
I’d be stroking my cat if I were a oil and gas lobbyist, says professor Myles Allen, director of the Oxford Net Zero initiative.
Boris Johnson has compared COP26 to a James Bond scenario – well, if I were an oil and gas industry lobbyist, I’d be stroking my cat at how well it is all going. You can smell the red herrings from Oxford. Everyone is taking every opportunity to talk about anything except the main point, which is how we stop fossil fuels from causing global warming before the world stops using fossil fuels. The answer is simple: we need to enforce safe and permanent disposal of carbon dioxide, as a licensing condition of selling fossil fuels, and stop fly-tipping it into the atmosphere like Glasgow’s bin-bags.
Brazil 'green powerhouse' speech criticised
The Guardian’s environment editor, Damian Carrington, reports that while Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro is not at Cop26, he has made a speech today that is extraordinary given the Amazon rainforest destruction that his presidency has resulted in.
“Brazil is a green powerhouse. When it comes to fighting climate change, we have always been part of the solution, not the problem,” said Bolsonaro. “We will favour actions and projects for forest conservation, rational use of natural resources, mitigation of greenhouse gases emissions and, mostly, the creation of ‘green jobs’.
“We will act responsibly, developing real solutions for an urgent transition,” he said. “We are committed to providing better living conditions for all Brazilians, and thus contributing to a better quality of life in the whole world. Brazil is part of the solution to overcome this global challenge. The results already achieved by our country until 2020 demonstrate that we can further raise our ambition.”
Brazil also increased its pledge to cut emissions today, from 43% to 50% by 2030, although the baseline year is unclear.
However, Amazon forest defenders today urged delegates at Cop26 not to trust the “greenwashing” promises of Bolsonaro’s government. They said the world should pay more attention to Brazil’s destructive policies of the recent past than to vague promises about the future, which they say are aimed at securing cash from rich nations.
Carlos Rittl, at the Rainforest Foundation Norway, said: “The world needs to hold Brazil accountable to the truth. The satellites don’t lie.” Bolsonaro’s green turn is ascribed to Donald Trump no longer being US president: while Trump was in office, Bolsonaro was emboldened to denigrate international cooperation on the world stage, but no longer.
Nonetheless, Bolsonaro’s supporters in Congress are still trying to change the law to allow more legal forest clearance and invasions of indigenous land.
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Joe Biden from the US, Emmanuel Macron from France, Joko Widodo from Indonesia, Angela Merkel from Germany and Justin Trudeau from Canada have all now given speeches at the conference this afternoon.
But three world leaders who won’t be here in person will be Xi Jinping of China, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil and Vladimir Putin of Russia - countries seen as key to the summit’s success.
It appears that coverage of the Cop26 in some of the countries where the leader is not attending is unfavourable.
BBC Monitoring reports lack of favourable #COP26 coverage so far in China, Russia, Iran and across Africa + Turkish President’s last minute u-turn: now apparently not attending
— Mark Lobel (@marklobel) November 1, 2021
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The details of the speech by China’s president, Xi Jinping, to the conference this afternoon are starting to emerge (it will be a written statement only - see earlier post)
Xi’s @COP26 speech stressed taking action and implementation, but did not offer much more (in Chinese only for now): https://t.co/BEt3cjgPKX
— Li Shuo_Greenpeace (@LiShuo_GP) November 1, 2021
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Speeches from the leaders of the world’s biggest emitters including China, Germany and the United States may garner most of the attention today, but we have also been hearing from representatives of smaller emitting countries whose populations are most at risk from the climate crisis.
Sonam Phuntsho Wangdi (the Kingdom of Bhutan) is chair of the Least Developed Countries Group at UN climate change negotiations, which represents the world’s poorest 48 nations.
"Words alone are not enough. We cannot leave Glasgow without strong commitments that will ensure the survival of the billion people living in the LDCs, now and in the future." - LDC Group statement at #COP26 opening plenary pic.twitter.com/AMzldU5Tga
— LDC Chair (@LDCChairUNFCCC) October 31, 2021
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World leaders will be “cursed” if they fail to reach an agreement on climate change, warns the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.
From BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg
Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby’s here at COP too - tells me leaders will be ‘cursed’ if they don’t reach agreement in next fortnight, and suggests failure to act would be possibly more grave than leaders who ignored warnings about the Nazis in the 30s
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) November 1, 2021
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Earlier today, before US president, Joe Biden, spoke, Nina Lakhani, climate justice reporter for Guardian US, was outside the Cop26 blue zone entrance where American grassroots activists from Build Back Fossil Free gathered to demand Biden take executive action to stop the approval of fossil fuel projects and declare a climate emergency.
Those present included representatives of frontline communities who suffer the impacts of oil and gas production, as well as climate justice activists arrested in Washington DC last month.
Protesters are enraged at Biden’s watering down of his campaign promises to tackle the climate emergency. His narrative of “climate leadership” contradicts the daily suffering by communities on the frontline of gas and oil production in the US, they say. In the first six months of the Biden administration, around 2,500 new oil and gas permits were authorised – a figure Trump’s administration took a year to reach.
After making big promises on confronting the climate crisis during last year’s election campaign, Biden comes to Glasgow with even weakened climate provisions faltering in Congress. His latest Build Back Better framework offers no policy to limit fossil fuel production. Last month, more than 600 activists were arrested during a week of protests in Washington DC known as People vs Fossil Fuels
Speakers include Black and indigenous leaders whose communities are on the frontline of fossil fuel extraction impacts including air pollution and contaminated drinking water and land across the US.
Tom Goldtooth, Native American leader from the Indigenous Environmental Network, said: “We’re here as the original people of the US to denounce the polluters conference – it’s not a climate conference – it’s been taken over by corporate interests. If we Indigenous people don’t come we’ll be on the menu. We’re here to defend our people, we want to live.”
Collin Rees, 31, a climate activist from Oil Change International, was detained in Washington last month. “Joe Biden could stop 24 fossil fuel projects with the stroke of pen which would prevent 1.6 gigatons of carbon entering the atmosphere – more than his congressional plan. He cannot come here and talk about climate leadership when he could be doing so much more.”
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Biden finishes his speech saying his administration is working to rebuild trust in the US’s commitment to tackling climate change. This is a reference to former president Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the UN Paris climate agreement in 2019 (the US formally left in 2020 but rejoined in 2021 after Biden had taken over as president).
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High energy prices are a call to action, says Joe Biden and only reinforce the urgent need to diversify sources and double-down on clean energy development.
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We can keep within 1.5C if we come together says Biden
The US president, Joe Biden, has just started speaking, saying climate change is destroying livelihoods every day. We can keep 1.5C within reach if we come together and do our part as nations, he says.
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As world leaders are making their speeches at the conference more than 1 million people have signed an open letter from climate activists, including Vanessa Nakate and Greta Thunberg, listing five key demands from them at the conference:
Keep the precious goal of 1.5C alive with immediate, drastic, annual emission reductions.
End all fossil fuel investments, subsidies, and new projects immediately, and stop new exploration and extraction.
End ‘creative’ carbon accounting by publishing total emissions for all consumption indices, supply chains, international aviation and shipping, and the burning of biomass.
Deliver the $100bn promised to the most vulnerable countries, with additional funds for climate disasters.
Enact climate policies that protect workers and the most vulnerable, and reduce all forms of inequality.
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World leaders will continue giving their opening statements to delegates this afternoon, with US president Joe Biden and French president Emmanuel Macron among those due to speak.
One very notable absence will be China’s president Xi Jinping, who will not address the conference in person or via video. The official schedule simply states: ‘Written statement to be uploaded on the conference website.’
China has said recently that it will aim to peak its emissions by 2030 and reach net zero emissions by 2060. But analysts say the country could peak emissions by 2025, which would be a major boost to global efforts to remain within 1.5C.
I’m Tom Levitt and I’ll be here posting updates of those speeches and other updates from the conference throughout the rest of the afternoon. You can email me at tom.levitt.casual@theguardian.com, or send me a message on Twitter at @tom_levitt.
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Lunchtime summary
The opening ceremony is over, and Cop26 has officially begun. Here’s a short roundup of what’s happened so far today:
- Huge queues outside the venue as delegates and observers were made to wait for hours outside.
- After a 25-minute delay, the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, opened the conference with a speech warning his fellow leaders that they will be judged by generations of children who have yet to be born.
- UN secretary general António Guterres said countries should update their climate pledges annually rather than every five years.
My colleague Tom Levitt will be taking over the blog for the afternoon, when we’re expecting short speeches from many more world leaders. You can reach him at tom.levitt.casual@theguardian.com, or @tom_levitt on Twitter.
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We asked Guardian readers around the world to send their messages for world leaders, and we have published a selection of their responses.
Sachin Ganpat from Trinidad and Tobago says:
“Where I live now is likely to be flooded out by rising seas in less than 100 years. It means my grandchildren are unlikely to continue to live in our generational home – I’m the third generation to live here. The area we live in used to flood once every 10 years, now it’s every year. In the Caribbean, it’s become a waiting game every hurricane season. There is a sense of helplessness. We need you to commit to taking drastic action and to actually do it. There is no more time left to delay.”
Read more from Sachin and other readers in Indonesia, the Netherlands, Norway, the UK, France, the US and Brazil here:
Greenpeace UK’s head of politics, Rebecca Newsom, has responded to Boris Johnson’s speech:
“Boris Johnson was right to match a grave tone about the climate crisis with words of hope about the potential for more action over the next fortnight. But with just one minute to midnight on the climate clock, why is the prime minister still taking steps in the opposite direction?
“Today’s announcement about UK climate finance is a complete distraction as it’s not new money and it’s not even guaranteed. Meanwhile, Johnson has left the door open to new oil and gas licences at a time when climate scientists and energy experts have made clear this is incompatible with the global goal of limiting warming to 1.5C. We hope world leaders listen to Johnson’s warnings, but maybe he needs to listen to them himself.”
“Children cannot live on words and empty promises, They are waiting for you to act. Please open your hearts,” says Wathuti.
And with that, the opening ceremony is over.
She invites leaders to join her in a moment’s silence for the billions of people whose stories are not being heard.
“Please open your hearts,” she urges them. “If you allow yourself to feel it, the heartbreak and injustice is hard to bear.”
“I have seen with my own eyes three young children crying at the side of a dried-up river after walking 12 miles with their mother to find water,” she says.
Algeria, Uganda and Nigeria are also being hit hard by the impacts of climate breakdown, she says. By 2050, half the world’s population will face water scarcity, and 86 million people will have been displaced in sub-Saharan Africa alone, she says.
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Young Kenyan activist Elizabeth Wathuti closes the ceremony. She talks about what is happening in her home country.
“Over 2 million of my fellow Kenyans are facing climate-related starvation. In this past year, both of our rainy seasons have failed. Scientists say it may be 12 months until the rains return again. Meanwhile, our rivers run dry.”
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The sometimes obscure procedures of the Cop process can baffle even the most dedicated follower. Fiona Harvey has put together a guide for the layperson that we hope will help explain everything you’ve ever wanted to know about Cop26 but been afraid to ask:
Cop26 should be a “bloody uncomfortable” experience for world leaders because not enough is being done to tackle the climate emergency, Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has told a side event at the Glasgow summit.
Sturgeon – whose own role at Cop is somewhat peripheral given it is being hosted by the UK government – argued that her own country also had to face up to difficult decisions, for example its economic reliance on oil and gas.
“This summit should not be comfortable for anybody in a position of leadership and responsibility,” she told a panel hosted by the WWF wildlife charity. “It should be bloody uncomfortable, because not many yet are doing enough, and that’s the reality.”
Sturgeon said:
“You take oil and gas. For a country like Scotland, tens of thousands of jobs depend on oil and gas. But that can’t be an excuse for saying, let’s just keep going with oil and gas indefinitely, because that’s catastrophic for the planet. Facing up to that is our biggest challenge, working out how we move away from it as quickly as possible. We’re trying to create the alternative jobs so we’re not leaving people on the scrapheap.
“If we only face up to the relatively easy things, we won’t get anywhere. This has to be a moment that leaders, all of us, around that negotiating table, are held to account for the reality of what we promised.
“What can everybody do? Make life really uncomfortable for any government, any leader, that’s not doing enough. At times that will be my government, and rightly so. We’ve all got to be pushed much harder, much faster.”
“For those who have eyes to see, for those who have ears to listen, for those who have a heart to feel, we need 1.5C. Two degrees is a death sentence,” says Mottley.
“We have come here to say: ‘Try harder.’”
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“Our world, my friends, stands at a fork in the road,” Mottley says.
Back then, many countries represented at Cop26 did not exist, she adds. “But we want to exist in 100 years.”
“The leaders of today, not 2030, not 2050, must make this choice. It is in our hands. Our people and our planet need it more than ever.”
Next up is Mia Mottley, the prime minister of Barbados. She speaks of the need for more finance for adaptation to the effects of climate change.
She refers to the absence of “some of the needed figures” at Cop26 - possibly a reference to Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping not attending the conference.
“Simply put, when will leaders lead?” she asks. “We are watching and we will take note.”
David Attenborough urges leaders at Cop26 to be ‘motivated by hope not fear’
“In my lifetime, I’ve witnessed a terrible decline. In yours, you could and should witness a wonderful recovery,” says Attenborough. He finishes by reminding the gathered leaders of their responsibilities over the next two weeks.
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“We must use this opportunity to create a more equal world, and our motivation should not be fear, but hope,” Attenborough says.
Attenborough says we need a new industrial revolution powered by sustainable innovation, including taking carbon out of the air. This could provide a clean new world, he says, and we can use nature as our ally.
“Is this how it is doomed to end?” he asks, questioning whether humanity’s downfall will be our shortsightedness. But he says there is still a chance to turn tragedy into triumph. “We are, after all, the greatest problem-solvers ever to have existed on Earth.”
It is a story of inequality, he says. “Those who have done the least to cause this problem are the hardest hit.” But soon we will all see the impacts of climate breakdown, he warns.
Attenborough gives the delegates a potted history of climate, showing a graph which shows how stable the climate was for many centuries before the era of climate change.
“We are already in trouble. The stability we all depend on is breaking.”
Boris Johnson is making probably the most serious speech of his life, certainly the most vital subject. In many ways it's a serious speech. But it still has shoehorned-in jokes, puns, arcane language, & digressions. You do wonder what those unfamiliar with his schtick make of it.
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) November 1, 2021
David Attenborough is now up. He was expected at 1pm, so they’ve made about 12 minutes back from the earlier delays.
Charles’s speech is largely about what the private sector are doing or can do.
“There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the private sector is ready to play its part.”
He stresses that the cost of inaction is far greater than the cost of prevention.
“I can only urge you to find ways to work together … to save this precious planet.”
Fiona Harvey has written an early report on Guterres’s speech
Charles tells the delegates they must cooperate and coordinate to find a solution based on creating a renewable, sustainable economy. He speaks about the need for the private sector to contribute to speeding up the process.
If you are finding Cop26 confusing you are not alone, says eminent climate scientist, Gavin Schmidt:
This tweet is just to let normal people know that even climate scientists are having an impossible time trying to work out what is going on at #COP26 and what of any of it will matter.
— Gavin Schmidt (@ClimateOfGavin) November 1, 2021
Prince Charles is next up. He opens by speaking about the links between the climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis. He urges the world leaders to act decisively: “Time has quite literally run out.”
decent #COP26 opening speech by @BorisJohnson
— Damian Carrington (@dpcarrington) November 1, 2021
repeatedly referred to responsibility to young and future generations
this research shows what they are facing ...many times more climate disasters than their grandparents#ClimateCrisis https://t.co/ZwjADWIS74
Guterres sums up with what may be a Trainspotting reference:
“Climate action tops the list of people’s concerns, across countries, age and gender. We must listen, we must act, and we must choose wisely. On behalf of this and future generations, I urge you: choose ambition, choose solidarity, choose to safeguard our future and save humanity.”
And with that, he has finished.
António Guterres urges action on $100bn climate finance target
Guterres speaks about the importance of reaching the $100bn a year target for climate finance promised in Paris in 2015:
“The $100bn a year climate finance commitment in support of developing countries must become a $100bn climate finance reality. This is critical to restoring trust and credibility.
“I welcome efforts led by Canada and Germany to help get us there. It is a first step — but it delays the largest support for years, with no clear guarantees. But beyond the $100bn, developing countries need far greater resources to fight Covid-19, build resilience and pursue sustainable development.
“Those suffering the most – namely, least developed countries and small island developing states – need urgent funding. More public climate finance, more overseas development aid, more grants and easier access to funding.”
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Guterres says the G20 countries are responsible for 80% of emissions and so have greater responsibility.
He says countries should return to Cop with new commitments every year, rather than every five years as previously:
“Let’s have no illusions: if commitments fall short by the end of this Cop, countries must revisit their national climate plans and policies.
“Not every five years. Every year until keeping to 1.5C is assured. Until subsidies to fossil fuels end, until there is a price on carbon, and until coal is phased out.”
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“A number of countries have made credible commitments to net-zero emissions by mid-century,” says Guterres.
“Many have pulled the plug on international financing of coal. Over 700 cities are leading the way to carbon neutrality. The private sector is waking up. The Net-Zero Asset Owners Alliance — the gold standard for credible commitments and transparent targets — is managing $10tn in assets and catalysing change across industries.
“The climate action army - led by young people - is unstoppable. They are larger. They are louder. And, I assure you, they are not going away.
“I stand with them,” he says.
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“As we open this much anticipated climate conference, we are still heading for climate disaster. Young people know it. Every country sees it. Small island developing states — and other vulnerable ones — live it. For them, failure is not an option. Failure is a death sentence.”
Guterres gives a picture of the changes already taking place:
“Our planet is changing before our eyes — from the ocean depths to mountain tops; from melting glaciers to relentless extreme weather events. Sea-level rise is double the rate it was 30 years ago. Oceans are hotter than ever — and getting warmer faster. Parts of the Amazon rainforest now emit more carbon than they absorb.”
António Guterres, the secretary general of the UN, is now speaking. He begins by thanking Johnson and Cop26 president, Alok Sharma, for hosting the conference.
He says the six years since the Paris agreement are the six hottest on record, and that humanity has been pushed to the brink.
“Either we stop it, or it stops us,” he says.
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Next up is Txai Surui, an indigenous activist from Rondonia in Brazil who is part of a lawsuit suing the Brazilian government over its climate inaction. She urges the world leaders to believe that it is still possible to turn things around and urges them to keep indigenous peoples in mind.
Now speaking is Brianna Fruean, a campaigner who grew up in Samoa and is now based in New Zealand. She speaks of the threat to small island nations and the difference between a temperature rise of 1.5C and 2C above pre-industrial levels.
She urges the politicians to keep in mind the fate of the millions living in small island nations when making decisions.
“We may not feel much like James Bond. Not all of us necessarily look much like James Bond. But we have the opportunity to make this summit the moment humanity began to defuse that bomb.
“Yes, it’s going to be hard, but yes, we can do it,” says Johnson as he wraps up.
Johnson is not getting the laughs he is expecting for some of his lines about belching cows and his hopes of remaining in Downing Street until 2050.
Johnson says the average age of the conclave of world leaders is over 60, something he says may dismay the young protesters outside.
“The children who will judge us are not yet born, and their children … we must not fluff our lines or miss our cue because they will not forgive us … they will judge us with a bitterness and resentment that eclipses that of any of the clime activists today. And they will be right.”
Johnson speaks about the importance of harnessing the private sector, which he says has the potential to provide trillions to countries to help adaption and mitigation efforts.
He describes the UK hopefully as “the Saudi Arabia of wind”.
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Johnson strikes an optimistic tone, talking about planting trees, finding innovative methods to produce energy, and drawing carbon from the air.
“We in the developed world must recognise the special responsibility we have to the rest of the world,” he says.
Johnson says it was in Glasgow that James Watt created the steam engine that helped kickstart the industrial revolution: “Yes friends, we brought you to the very place that the Doomsday machine began to tick.”
The children that will judge us are children not yet born, says Johnson
“If we don’t get serious about climate change today, it will be too late for our children to do so tomorrow,” Johnson warns.
He speaks about his experiences at the Copenhagen and Paris Cops. “All those promises will be nothing but blah, blah, blah, to coin a phrase,” he says, a reference to a Greta Thunberg line a couple of months ago.
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Johnson speaks about the urgency of action and the consequences if it is not taken - wildfires, droughts, starvation and flooding.
“The longer we fail to act, the worse it gets and the higher the price when we are forced to act.”
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The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, welcomes delegates to Glasgow by talking about the city’s most famous fictional son, James Bond. He draws an analogy between a ticking bomb that Bond must defuse in a film and the situation humanity finds itself in: “The doomsday device is real, and the clock is ticking to the furious rhythm of hundreds of billions of turbines and systems … covering the Earth in a suffocating blanket of CO2.”
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The microphone kicked back in for the final lines of her poem:
Anything later than now is too little, too late. Nothing will change without you.
Now the delegates are being shown a short film about the insignificance of humanity in the scheme of the universe.
Poet Yrsa Daley-Ward is now reciting a poem to the gathered leaders, but her microphone is not on and it’s impossible to make out what she’s saying from the live stream.
The lights are dimmed and the ceremony is finally beginning, 25 minutes late. A piper is performing, after which we can expect Johnson and Guterres to speak.
There is a real feeling of chaos at the entrance to where world leaders are arriving. Security is now telling people to move back on microphones as delegations squabble over tickets to get in. #COP26 pic.twitter.com/n09VMMLkLC
— Patrick Greenfield (@pgreenfielduk) November 1, 2021
A reader who is working at Cop26 has been in touch to say the delay is because they are waiting for the US president, Joe Biden, to arrive. Biden flew in to Edinburgh earlier today and has been driven to Glasgow in a motorcade.
Pictures are just coming through of Biden at the entrance to the conference hall, so hopefully the delay won’t be too long now.
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World leaders and politicians are milling around the plenary hall ahead of Boris Johnson’s opening speech, with Angela Merkel and Liz Truss among those arriving early.
Emmanuel Macron did fist/elbow bump Boris Johnson earlier in the day at the meet-and-greet but he did not appear to be in a good mood as he spoke to French reporters in a scrum outside the main hall, following his ongoing row with Australia’s Scott Morrison about whether France was misled about the Aukus defence pact.
Ursula von der Leyen declined to comment on whether the UK-French fishing spat was undermining focus on the vital climate goals of the summit.
We’re still waiting for the opening ceremony to start. Delegates have been asked to take their seats three times now but many are still milling around without any clear sense of urgency.
Meanwhile, CNN have sent veteran correspondent Wolf Blitzer to report on proceedings - but from Edinburgh, about 40 miles away from the conference in Glasgow.
I’m now reporting from Edinburgh in Scotland where 20,000 world leaders and delegates have gathered for the COP26 Climate Summit. COP, by the way, stands for “Conference of the Parties.” It’s the 26th time they have gathered to discuss and take action on this critical issue. pic.twitter.com/BGTAeU5cBy
— Wolf Blitzer (@wolfblitzer) November 1, 2021
Our economics editor, Larry Elliott, has been to Aberdeen to find out how Britain’s oil industry boom town is planning to adapt to life beyond fossil fuels. He found a mixture of concern and optimism that the city can weather the change.
Some say it has taken a long time for the penny to drop in Aberdeen. “They should have been thinking about this ages ago,” says Andrew Carter, the chief executive of the Centre for Cities thinktank. “I never got the impression they were fully committed or serious about it.”
But Carter says Aberdeen is better placed to weather structural change to its local economy than other cities. “Our data shows a pretty dynamic economy. Business startups are good. There is a fair-size stock of activities going on and more than 50% of people have a degree or higher. It is better placed than some one-industry towns, such as Sunderland were Nissan to leave.”
Read the full piece here:
Chaotic scenes at the entrance to the world leaders event. Delegations are squabbling with security to get let into the hall as presidents and prime ministers push past. Nicola Sturgeon, Liz Truss and the prime minister of Thailand have just made it through.
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The beginning of the opening ceremony appears to have been delayed - Boris Johnson was supposed to have started speaking by now. The conference room appears to be far from full still.
The House of Lords environment and climate change committee has sent a letter to the Cop26 president, Alok Sharma, as the conference begins, criticising the preparations for the event.
The committee chair, Kate Parminter, wrote:
“The climate change emergency is one of the greatest challenges of our time and Cop26 is the biggest political event that Britain has ever hosted, so we would have expected clear leadership from the top and effective processes in place to coordinate action across departments.
“The absence of an effective climate change machinery across government has hindered preparation for Cop26 and limited wider progress.
“Not all departments are embedding climate change sufficiently into their policy-making and it is unclear how the centre of government is holding departments to account firmly.
“It’s hard to conclude that the delivery of Cop26 across government will be equal to the scale of the challenge.”
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The opening ceremony is scheduled to begin at noon, though it’s not clear whether all the delegates have managed to get inside yet. Speakers will include the UN secretary general, António Guterres, and the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson.
If you want to watch it live, you can follow it on this page.
UPDATE: The UNFCCC feed appears to have crashed, but you can watch our stream of the event here:
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I am outside the Cop26 blue zone entrance where American grassroots activists from the Build Back Fossil Free coalition are expected at 12 to demand Joe Biden take executive action to stop the approval of fossil fuel projects and declare a climate emergency.
Protesters are furious at Biden’s likely narrative of “climate leadership” which they say contradicts the daily suffering by communities on the frontline of gas and oil production in the US. In the first six months of the Biden administration, about 2,500 new oil and gas permits were authorised - a figure Trump’s administration took a year to reach.
After making big promises on confronting the climate crisis during last year’s election campaign, Biden comes to Glasgow with even weakened climate provisions faltering in Congress. His latest Build Back Better framework offers no policy to limit fossil fuel production. Last month, more than 600 activists were arrested during a week of protests in Washington DC known as People v Fossil Fuels.
It’s very cold but there are a couple of small protests already taking place including a delegation from Uganda demanding Boris Johnson take action against the country’s president, Yoweri Museveni, who is accused of a wide range of human rights violations including environmental destruction.
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The Liberian president and former footballing great George Weah has arrived at the conference. He may well be fond of the city already - his son Timothy won the Scottish Premiership with Celtic in 2019.
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The shadow energy secretary, Ed Miliband, has commented on the conference this morning, as reported by PA Media:
Miliband said he is “glad” the prime minister has acknowledged how difficult a successful outcome will be at Cop26, but wished Boris Johnson’s realisation had occurred sooner.
Ed Miliband said: “The prime minister has finally woken up to how difficult this is, but I wish he’d woken up two years ago, not two days before the summit begins.
“There’s a real sense with the prime minister that he does these things at the last minute - lastminute.gov, essay-crisis prime minister.
“You can’t do that with Cop26, it’s too important and too complex a negotiation.”
He added: “We are a long way away from where we need to be - his job now is to put pressure on all the big emitters, the Australias, the Chinas and others, to say: ‘You’ve got to step up and do more’.”
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My colleague Jonathan Watts has written about warnings from environmentalists not to trust Brazil at the conference. Under far-right president Jair Bolsonaro deforestation has surged and protections for indigenous groups have been removed.
However, things have improved slightly in the past year.
At Glasgow, Brazil will show a less fractious face. This is largely due to the shift in Washington. While Donald Trump was in the White House, Bolsonaro was emboldened to denigrate international cooperation on the world stage. Since Joe Biden came to power, he has been forced to drop his two most globally toxic representatives: the former foreign minister Ernesto Araújo, and the former environment minister Ricardo Salles. The new environment minister, Joaquim Leite, who will head the Brazilian delegation at Glasgow, is far more personable, but activists say he has done little to change the destructive policies of his predecessor.
Read more here:
I’m in the pavilion area. This is a like a makeshift village where countries and organisations have dedicated areas where they can show off what they’re doing and stage talks. Lots of plywood, plants and people wearing suits. Everyone claims to be taking it more seriously than their neighbour.
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Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has just met Swedish school strike activist Greta Thunberg and Ugandan activist Vanessa Nakate inside the venue.
Nakate wrote for the Guardian on Friday about the need to set up a climate compensation fund for poor countries:
I believe in the “polluter pays” principle. A recent analysis identified the countries historically responsible for the climate crisis. We know who did this – but they don’t want to pay the bill. Rich countries providing finance only for the mitigation of our emissions and protections against future impacts is no longer enough. Climate-vulnerable countries need funds to deal with the loss and damage we are suffering now.
Read the full piece here:
Oil-rich Saudi Arabia has often tried to frustrate progress at previous Cop26 climate summits, but it appears to be seeking better PR.
Environment editor Damian Carrington reports being sent this unsolicited DM via Twitter:
“Hi dear, we have a Saudi campaign promoting the environment initiatives happening there. We would like you to participate with us by tweeting about it. May i know if its possible and how much would u charge per tweet”
A source at the Saudi embassy in the UK said the approach had nothing to do with the government of the kingdom.
Scenes like this have not been seen at a Cop since the poorly prepared Copenhagen conference in 2009. A crowd of many hundreds, probably at least 2,000 just in the forward bit, gathered at the entrance, where there seemed to be no preparation, no attempt to encourage people to queue rather than simply press forward, no pretence at social distancing.
People are packed together closely with no option but to press ahead because of the stream of new people arriving behind. The queue has been moving at a speed of roughly 10 to 15 feet per hour by the estimates of a few people here. There seems little prospect of improvement and at this rate thousands of people will be standing outside for hours.
I stood in a similar queue on Friday. This time, thankfully, it is not raining but they could have had a better plan for queue management. Like many people here I’ve already had a long journey, having left before 8am to get here, so there’s a lot of weariness in the crowd here before we even get started but everyone is still in good spirits and just eager to get in.
It is inexplicable that the UK hosts have not managed this better having had nearly two years to prepare. They knew 30,000 people would come.
• This post was amended on 1 November 2021. The UK government is hosting Cop26, not the Scottish as stated in an earlier version.
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My colleague Damian Carrington has done a deep dive into almost 40 recent polls on climate from around the world, and found that across the world, the public overwhelmingly back urgent action on the climate crisis.
However, people do not have confidence in their elected representatives that the necessary action will be taken.
Read the full piece here:
Once delegates do get in, at least they won’t go thirsty - as long as they like Irn-Bru
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Queueing chaos outside the venue
It seems the queues for security outside the venue are causing chaos.
Chris McCall of the Daily Record says some delegates are trying to skip the queue:
Huge queues to get in to #COP26. Much grumbling as various delegates attempt to skip to the front of the queue to security.
— Chris McCall (@Dennynews) November 1, 2021
One UN observer tells me: “This is a problem with COP. Everyone has a business class mentality.” pic.twitter.com/Do4RuHoPPI
While Paul Waugh at the i describes the scenes as “utter chaos”:
Utter chaos at security for COP26. It's not as if they couldn't plan for this is it? pic.twitter.com/HBI1lMMiEW
— Paul Waugh (@paulwaugh) November 1, 2021
Our own Phoebe Weston says she queued for an hour before getting in
A dinosaur with a message for Joe Biden poses outside the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art.
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Kate Proctor of PoliticsHome (and formerly of the Guardian) has tweeted from the enormous queues to get through security:
It's my own fault for not doing this at 6am or something but long queues for COP26 just to get through security. #COP26 pic.twitter.com/6mBladwoaI
— Kate Proctor (@Kate_M_Proctor) November 1, 2021
She says security staff are going down the line asking people not to take photos, which sounds like a doomed effort.
Travel chaos hampered many delegates and observers’ arrival in Glasgow for Cop26 yesterday, with a tree on the tracks taking out the west coast main line for a large part of the day. Trains on the east coast line were also delayed after overhead wires near Peterborough sustained damage.
Guardian reporters Patrick Greenfield (who ended up having to hire a van from Luton and drive to Glasgow) and Phoebe Weston (who endured a heavily delayed journey up the east coast line) have more details here.
Fortunately trains appear to be running smoothly again this morning.
John Vidal, the former environment editor of the Guardian, has written about the seven stages of a Cop meeting, of which he’s seen his fair share. We are currently in stage one.
1. The arrival. Here we go again. Teams of jet-lagged lobbyists, diplomats, journos, bankers and business folk queue with delegations of indigenous peoples and youth groups, lawyers, NGOs and economists to enter the parallel universe that is a UN climate Cop. Within hours, the complaints will start about the price of coffee, the distance between meeting rooms, the Glaswegian accents, the rain, the trains, the traffic, the UN security, the heavy policing and the dearth of good restaurants.
So far I’ve seen complaints about queues, coffee, rain, trains, traffic and restaurants being booked out, so nearly a full bingo card already.
Read the rest of the piece here:
Protesters in a Scottish pipe band have arrived in Glasgow wearing grotesque masks bearing the likenesses of (from left to right) Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Italy’s Mario Draghi, France’s Emmanuel Macron, Joe Biden of the US; the British PM, Boris Johnson; the German chancellor, Angela Merkel; the Canadian PM, Justin Trudeau; the Indian PM, Narendra Modi; and Xi Jinping of China.
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Each of the days of the conference is dedicated to a theme.
Tue 2: forests
Wed 3: finance
Thu 4: energy
Fri 5: youth and public empowerment
Sat 6: nature
Mon 8: adaptation, loss and damage
Tue 9: gender, science and innovation
Wed 10: transport
Thu 11: cities, regions and the built environment
Then negotiations are scheduled to end at 6pm on Friday 12 November - but in practice at the vast majority of previous Cops negotiations have overrun into Saturday and even Sunday.
It’s not often an environment story makes the front of almost all the papers, but all the UK’s main national titles have run Cop26 stories on their front pages with the exception of the Sun and the Star, who have gone with Simon Cowell deciding not to host a TV show and a forecast of bad weather later in the week respectively.
My colleague Fiona Harvey, who has been to more Cops than almost any other journalist in the world, has written about her optimism before Cop26:
In my years reporting on this issue, I’ve seen so many triumphs and disasters. The bottom line on our struggle against climate catastrophe is this: we don’t have a choice but to win, and we absolutely can.
There was a time when it seemed impossible to solve the problem of acid rain, but we did. It’s true that greater challenges lie ahead, and they will require action from the whole global economy, but we have the technology and the ingenuity.
I have no time for people who say this is too expensive – if we don’t have a planet then we don’t have an economy. So solving these problems is a question of “how”, not “if”.
Read more here:
World leaders are beginning to arrive at the SEC, where they are being greeted by the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson.
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Many were disappointed when it was confirmed that the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, would not attend in person, as although he has not left China since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic some feared it might signal a lack of ambition from China.
Although it had been rumoured over the weekend that he would join the conference by video, it has been confirmed that instead a written statement will be uploaded on the conference website this afternoon.
You can see the full list of speakers for today’s session here.
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There is a sense of occasion in Glasgow this morning. While walking to the convention centre on the banks of the river Clyde, it felt like I was on the way to a major concert or football cup final. Climate negotiators, scientists, business people, NGO staff and journalists were making their way through the city to the impressive security operation at the SEC centre. Everyone has to show proof of a negative lateral flow test, ID and an invitation letter.
Today is all about the world leaders’ announcements. We will be bringing you updates throughout the day and interesting bits from the convention centre.
A lovely autumn morning in Glasgow. #COP26 pic.twitter.com/7H4Io7Jv6n
— Patrick Greenfield (@pgreenfielduk) November 1, 2021
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Welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the Cop26 climate conference. Each day we will bring you the latest news from the negotiations in Glasgow, as well as updates and reaction from around the globe.
Delegates and world leaders have been arriving in Scotland over the weekend ahead of the official opening ceremony at noon GMT today.
Here’s a timetable of what to expect today:
From 8am: heads of state arrive at conference “blue zone”
12 noon: opening ceremony for world leaders summit
1.30pm: the Cop26 president, Alok Sharma of the UK, will welcome delegates to the high-level segment of the conference
1.45pm: national leaders give brief statements, with more to follow tomorrow. Big names on Monday include Emmanuel Macron of France, Joko Widodo of Indonesia, Ursula von der Leyen of the EU, Angela Merkel of Germany, Scott Morrison of Australia and Mario Draghi of Italy. A full list of speakers can be found here.
5pm: leaders visit Kelvingrove art gallery for a reception
I’m Alan Evans, and you can email me at alan.evans@theguardian.com, or send me a message on Twitter at @itsalanevans.
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