Evening summary
- Pledges put forward at Cop26 would limit global temperature rises to below 2C, the first time the world has been on such a trajectory, according to research from the University of Melbourne has found.
- More than 20 countries and financial institutions have vowed to halt all financing for fossil fuel development overseas and divert the estimated $8bn a year to green energy.
- The heatwaves and wildfires that caused devastation in Europe this summer would not have happened without global heating, new analysis shows.
- The staggering take-up of solar power in India has enabled the prime minister, Narendra Modi, to announce a more ambitious climate plan at the Cop26 conference in Glasgow, according to the country’s foreign secretary.
- Rishi Sunak announced that London will become the world’s “first net-zero finance centre” - but environmentalists reacted with scepticism
We are wrapping up the blog for today but join us again tomorrow morning for Day four of Cop26, which will be focusing on energy.
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Scottish activists have occupied a building in the city centre in order to provide safe and secure accommodation to protesters who have been forced to sleep rough or make do with unsuitable arrangements because of the chronic shortage of affordable lodgings at Cop26.
One of the organisers explained that a number of Indigenous elders had approached local activists requesting blankets so that they might sleep rough. “It’s horrific that these people have come to make their voices heard, and we have all this money for the helicopters flying above our heads but these elders don’t have anywhere warm and dignified to sleep.”
The lack of affordable accommodation has been well-documented – at previous summits, local government worked with activists to provide hostel-style accommodation for those who could not afford expensive hotel rooms, converting gym halls and community centres into bunkhouses. While recognising that Covid-19 restrictions add an extra layer of difficulty this year, activists have been highly critical of the lack of practical action from Glasgow city council
The activists hope to keep the building open for visitors until the end of the conference, but note there is no legal protection for squatting under Scots law.
A longer version of the website will be on the website soon.
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My colleague Libby Brooks has been catching up with activists around Cop26 and found anger and hope on the streets of Glasgow.
Ed Miliband, the shadow Cop26 president, has said that capitalism does not need to be overthrown as a prerequisite for action on the climate crisis. Speaking to the Guardian’s Science Weekly podcast for tomorrow’s episode on finance, he said the emphasis must be on greening capitalism, not replacing it with another system.
“I think fundamentally changing the way capitalism works is the prerequisite [for action on the climate]. And given the urgency, we’ve got to get on with this. Some people who listen to this podcast want to overthrow capitalism. That’s not me,” he said. “We’ve got nine years to turn this round.”
The former Labour leader said the world needed to deal with the “carbon bubble” in the financial system, incubating a financial crisis if companies did not change.
“At some point, investors and shareholders will realise we’re gonna have to act ... We could see it actually collapse in all of these investments that we’ve invested in.”
The interview will be available on the Guardian’s Science Weekly podcast, which is producing an episode every day for Cop26.
Updated
Here is the full story as promised earlier, revealing how 20 countries - including UK and US - are ending financing of fossil fuels overseas.
In a significant move, it has emerged that more than 20 countries and financial institutions will halt all financing for fossil fuel development overseas and divert the spending to green energy instead from next year.
The countries affected include the US, UK, Denmark and some developing countries, including Costa Rica. The European Investment Bank is one of the financial institutions involved.
Diverting their funding from fossil fuels to low-carbon efforts will generate an estimated $8bn a year around the world for clean energy. The agreement will prevent the funding of any fossil fuel development, including gas, though there are provisions for loopholes.
My colleagues Fiona Harvey and Patrick Greenfield will have the full story shortly.
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Labour’s Ed Miliband, the shadow business secretary, has sounded a loud note of caution over claims promises made at Cop26 are on course to see temperature increase by less than 2C.
🧵 1/ Any progress is welcome to Keep 1.5C alive, but we need extreme caution about declaring success on the basis of vague and often vacuous net zero targets three or more decades hence. What matters most is this decisive decade.https://t.co/L96OkhcJSw
— Ed Miliband (@Ed_Miliband) November 3, 2021
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Climate activist Greta Thunberg has made her own pledge at Cop26 today. After being filmed chanting “you can shove your climate crisis up your arse” with fellow protesters in Glasgow, she tweeted:
I am pleased to announce that I’ve decided to go net-zero on swear words and bad language. In the event that I should say something inappropriate I pledge to compensate that by saying something nice. #COP26
— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) November 3, 2021
Doug Parr, Greenpeace UK’s chief scientist [and wit], replied
You could offset it, and pay someone else to say something nice in a few years time
— Doug Parr (@doug_parr) November 3, 2021
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Cop26 "a failure" unless finance flows to frontline communities - campaigners
Climate Action Network (CAN), a global network of 1,500 or so environmental civil society organisations in more than 130 countries, used their first press conference to call out the lack of concrete details and ambition so far on crucial issues like reducing emissions, climate finance and loss and damage.
“We’ve heard a flurry of announcements so far, but most belong in the category of lip service … leaders making statements for headlines, but we all need to get into the details as that’s where the devils are,” said Harjeet Singh, senior adviser at CAN, who talked about the millions of people who have already lost their homes, land and livelihoods because of the climate breakdown causing rising sea levels, and increasingly intense droughts and floods.
“We will judge Cop26 on how much rich countries stand in solidarity with vulnerable people … If there is no stream of finance agreed for people now, we will call this Cop a failure.”
The UK government’s claims that this would be the most inclusive Cop in history, has come back to bite them as it seems increasingly clear that the opposite is true.
For instance, environmental NGOs are allowed only four delegates into the negotiations area, even though there are six meeting rooms. “We call on the UNFCCC and presidency [UK government] to take immediate action so that the voices of those communities and indigenous peoples most impacted by climate change and climate action can be heard in the negotiating rooms,” said Sebastian Duyck from the Centre for International Environmental Law.”
CAN will hold a press conference every day for the rest of Cop, to offer their views on the substance and equity - or lack of - of what’s pledged and announced by states and governments. Danny Sriskandarajah, CEO of Oxfam GB, summed it up like this: “Climate action without climate justice is technically and morally bankrupt.”
Sharma press conference has finished now.
Earlier, the Green MP, Caroline Lucas, pointed out the “utter hypocrisy” of Boris Johnson’s dire climate warnings and calls for immediate action at Cop26 at the same time as the UK presses ahead with a new oil field in the North Atlantic.
Absolutely astonishing that the PM can return from #COP26, talk about one minute to midnight for the climate, then refuse to rule out #Cambo oil field
— Caroline Lucas (@CarolineLucas) November 3, 2021
The utter hypocrisy of it. I only hope the COP26 negotiators weren't listening pic.twitter.com/NlLUkUPGfu
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This could be potentially interesting following the deal that South Africa struck with the UK, EU, and US for a new $8.5bn Just Energy Transition Partnership with South Africa to help reduce the country’s reliance on coal.
Indonesia dangling 2040 coal end date if - like South Africa - it’s offered a financial package #COP26 https://t.co/D7LGo97Rgk
— Ed King (@edking_I) November 3, 2021
On the issue of problems of access to the conference venue there is real anger building from campaigners with some delegates reporting that they have received messages saying the venue is full and to “phone in” to meetings from their hotel rooms.
Dorothy Guerrero, a spokesperson for the COP Coalition campaign group, said: “This climate summit isn’t just the least accessible ever and a chaotic shambles, it’s grossly unjust. When so many people from the world’s most impacted countries weren’t able to make it, and delegates [who did mange to get here] are being told to ‘dial in’ from their hotel rooms - something is seriously wrong.”
She said people had paid thousands of pounds to get to Glasgow, often out of their own pocket, “yet they are met with mammoth queues and told to stay away.”
“This summit should have been about serious action on the climate emergency, yet once again the UK has designed a summit that quite literally excludes people from having their voices heard.”
Updated
Sharma now taking questions.
Asked about problems of accessibility and capacity that have dogged the first few days of the conference, he says this is a unique Cop that has had to cope with Covid, but adds he regrets logistical issues and says they are working to fix those.
He adds the first two days, in which world leaders flew in from around the globe experienced particular pressure but hopes that will ease in the coming days.
Updated
Cop26 president Alok Sharma gives progress update
Sharma is speaking now. He says Cop26 has got off to a good start.
He says Paris promised and Glasgow must deliver, repeating the mantra that the world must keep 1.5C of warming within reach.
He pays tribute to deals on forests and methane and says vulnerable countries are at the forefront of his mind.
He says he deeply regrets that the deadline for the $100bn of finance to developing countries has not been met, but says richer nations are getting closer and closer to delivering on that promise.
He adds he is “cautiously optimistic” as attention turns to the detailed negotiations with “the can-do attitude” apparently shown by leaders being carried through by the negotiators.
Updated
Alok Sharma, the president of Cop26 is about to speak, but while we are waiting for that to start it appears that Rishi Sunak’s plan was to come to Glasgow, make his climate finance announcement and get out again with as little scrutiny as possible.
However, young activists from campaign group GND Rising had other ideas and at least managed to ask him one question: why is the UK government still giving tax breaks to fossil fuel companies?
— Green New Deal Rising (@GNDRising) November 3, 2021
According to one of those present, the campaigners were then chucked out with officials saying the chancellor wouldn’t start his speech until they had been removed.
Updated
Lunchtime summary
We’re about half way through day three of Cop26. Here’s a short summary of what’s happened so far today:
- A newly released climate model found that new pledges made in the past few days have put the world on a pathway to 1.9C of heating above pre-industrial levels
- Rishi Sunak announced that London will become the world’s “first net-zero finance centre” - but environmentalists reacted with scepticism
- An attribution study found Europe’s record-breaking hot summer would have been virtually impossible without anthropogenic global heating
I’m now handing to liveblog over to my colleague Matthew Taylor, whom you can reach at matthew.taylor@theguardian.com.
Updated
Cycling and sustainable transport activists are expecting more than 700 cyclists from across Scotland to converge on Glasgow on Saturday, to join the mass demonstration planned that day to urge radical action on climate.
Campaigners behind the Pedal on Parliament protests, which ride en masse through Edinburgh to the Scottish parliament each year to demand better facilities and funding for cycling, expect cyclists from as far north as Inverness and Aberdeen to join Saturday’s protests.
Temporarily rebranded Pedal on Cop, the group has collaborated with local cycling campaign groups to organise eight feeder rides from towns and neighbourhoods in the Glasgow area, including Paisley and Clydebank, and 13 from towns and cities further afield. Those will include Stirling, Dundee, Dumfries, Alloa, Edinburgh, with several groups cycling through the Highlands.
The Inverness, Perth, Dundee and Aberdeen contingents are planning to set off for Glasgow on Thursday and Friday; the Inverness group will ride 162 miles before joining up with cyclists from Perth in Stirling on Saturday morning.
Organisers said these contingents will lead the sustainable transport bloc at the rear of Saturday’s march representing campaigners who want improved walking, safer streets and dramatically improved public transport in Scotland.
My colleague Oliver Milman has taken a look at US president Joe Biden’s time at Cop26.
The US was clearly piqued at how little the relentless diplomacy of John Kerry, Biden’s climate envoy, had done to extract deeper emissions cuts from leading carbon polluters. Neither Russia’s Vladimir Putin nor China’s Xi Jinping, who both offered barely improved new targets at the talks, traveled to Glasgow. Biden’s frustration bubbled over as he prepared to depart on Tuesday.
Read the full piece here:
Ian Blackford, the SNP’s leader in Westminster, asks Johnson why the commitments from G20 nations always seem to come with a catch. He says the UK’s pledges announced on Monday come with the caveat that they will only be fulfilled if the UK economy grows as projected, and says the UK government should follow the lead of the Scottish government in making the pledges unconditional.
Johnson says he agrees more needs to be done on climate finance. He says the UK is putting £11.6bn towards the $100bn annual target (but does not mention that this pledge is over five years, not one).
Rayner brings up the subject of cuts to development aid, which are hampering the climate efforts of poor countries. The government has received a lot of criticism for these cuts, and representatives from developing nations have said the UK is setting a bad example to other countries as Cop26 presidents and hosts of the talks.
Rayner urges the prime minister to pay attention to detail in the negotiations: “If he fails to deliver, we will all pay the price.”
Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner responds (she’s in the hot seat because Keir Starmer is still isolating with Covid-19).
She says everybody in parliament wants the conference to be a success, but that there is cause for concern. She says the G20 meeting at the weekend was an opportunity to apply pressure on the major polluting nations to commit to a pathway to 1.5C and to bring about a just transition, but the opportunity was not taken.
Rayner says urgent action is needed, and that it is the PM’s responsibility to lead by example.
She says the UK government is refusing to take the lead on coal mines even within its own borders and agreeing a trade deal with Australia that undermines key climate pledges.
“Far more still needs to be done to spare humanity from catastrophic climate change,” says Johnson. He says that for some island states the negotiations are a matter of national survival.
Johnson says good progress has been made at Cop26 so far, and that nations comprising 90% of the world economy are now committed to net zero, up from 30% two years ago. He rattles off various pledges that have been made at the conference so far.
But he ends with a warning: “Whether we can summon the collective wisdom and will to save ourselves from an avoidable disaster still hangs in the balance,” he says.
Johnson says the G20 has a special duty to act as it accounts for 80% of the world economy. He says 18 countries in the G20 have now made specific net zero commitments, and says every member at the weekend G20 meeting in Rome agreed to various measures to reduce emissions, including stopping financing for overseas coal projects.
PMQs is over and UK prime minister Boris Johnson is making a statement to parliament about Cop26.
“This is the moment when we must turn words into action,” he says, echoing the Queen’s words on Monday. “If we fail then Paris will have failed, and every summit going back to Rio in 1992 will have failed.”
A giant image of the Queen has been displayed on the famous billboards in Piccadilly Square, London. It quotes her as saying “The time for words has now moved to the time for action”. She reportedly said this at a dinner held for world leaders attending Cop26 on Monday night, but it’s a handily reusable quote for almost any situation, should the billboard’s owners feel like keeping her up there.
There’s a lively Extinction Rebellion gathering at the top of Buchanan Street, with booming drummers and this tree who has come all the way from South Wales.
“Stumpy” told the Guardian he was pleased with the reforestation deal announced on Monday, but cautioned: “We’ve had so many deals and people have reneged on them and if we’re not keeping the likes of Bolsonaro accountable then there’s little point.”
Updated
Barclays branches and offices across Glasgow are now plastered with “congratulations” after a new report claimed the bank has financed more fossil fuel projects than any of the UK’s largest banks in the months leading up to the climate summit.
The report by climate finance campaigners at Market Forces, covered by the Guardian this week, found that Barclays financed $5.6bn (£4.1bn) for new fossil fuel projects from January 2021 to the eve of Cop26 despite growing international warnings that new fossil developments would destroy any chance of avoiding a catastrophic climate breakdown.
Market Forces said the stickers are vinyl, so unlike Barclays’ fossil fuel financing they won’t cause any damage.
Morning @Barclays - we wanted to say congratulations for funding the most fossil fuels between January and #COP26, so we redecorated your Glasgow Southside branch 😍 pic.twitter.com/jQ1MONXZLs
— Market Forces (@market_forces) November 3, 2021
Climate Action Network International’s daily “fossil of the day” award for countries they see as blocking climate action was shared by three countries yesterday:
- Norway, after new prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre said Norwegian gas was “not the problem, but part of the solution for a successful transition to renewable energy”
- Japan, after PM Fumio Kishida said fossil fuel plants were essential as part of the transition to renewables. Japan is a big coal user and plans to continue operating coal plants well beyond 2030
- Australia (for the second day in a row) after they used their pavilion to host gas company Santos. My colleague Adam Morton in Australia has more on that story here.
My colleague Andrew Sparrow is about to cover prime minister’s questions in the UK politics liveblog. Although it is likely to be largely about the Owen Paterson suspension vote, there are also likely to be questions about Cop26 and the government’s recent climate announcements.
You can follow along here:
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A project aiming to preserve indigenous languages has been launched at Cop26. The Living Language Land project have released recordings of 26 words that highlight humanity’s ties to Earth.
One such word is |xau from the Namibian |Xam language, defined as “to shoot with a magical arrow or go on a magical expedition”.
Read about and listen to more of the words from the project in this piece by my colleague Severin Carrell:
Climate model puts world on track for 1.9C of heating
India’s pledge to reach net zero by 2070 was described as lacklustre and too late by some observers but number crunching by the University of Melbourne suggests it could be better than first thought and, taken with other recent pledges on emissions made in Glasgow, could be enough to bring the worlds emissions trajectory on a pathway below 2C for the first time.
It is still far from enough to hold the world within 1.5C, the aim of Cop26, but it makes a useful difference. Researchers have run the numbers through their IPCC AR6 WG1-consistent climate emulator Magicc - which results in a best-estimate projection of a 1.9C peak warming this century.
Here’s an image released by Climate Resource showing the difference:
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Ninawa Huni Kui, of the Huni Kui people from Acre, Brazil was outside the conference venue protesting against carbon offsetting, which he said was tearing indigenous communities apart.
“They should not be deciding things without us. This Cop won’t help the climate emergency without our participation. Our land is being invaded by miners, farmers and hydroelectric companies. Our voice must be heard.”
This morning sees the announcement of the winners of Cup26, described by its organisers as “football’s biggest climate tournament” (a category in which it has little competition).
Over recent weeks, fans and schoolchildren supporting 49 British clubs have been competing to record as many green actions as they can, from making a bird feeder to eating a vegetarian meal to installing a smart meter.
Cambridge United came top of the table, and the organisers say that as a result 1,000 football pitches in the Democratic Republic of the Congo will now be protected.
Somewhere a butterfly flaps its wings, a Cambridge United fan eats a veggie burger, and in 10-15 years perhaps we can expect the emergence of the next Lomana LuaLua.
There’s widespread concern that Rishi Sunak has missed the opportunity to make a real change to the way businesses and financial institutions operate when it comes to the climate and net zero.
Christian Aid’s UK advocacy and policy lead, Jennifer Larbie, said: “It’s welcomed that the chancellor recognises London’s financial sector is critical to any meaningful progress towards a global net zero. But this announcement does little to shift the dial now on the trillions still flowing into fossil fuel projects every day, with the deadliest of impacts borne by developing countries. The UK government must mandate the financial sector to act with urgency to end fossil fuel investments.”
But some were more positive. Kate Levick, associate director for sustainable finance at the E3G thinktank said: “This is a major step forward. To be in line with the science and 1.5C, financial regulators will have a crucial role to play in enforcing these transition plans to ensure they are credible.”
But we won’t know what Sunak’s answer is to these concerns as incredibly, he’s coming to Glasgow but refusing to do a press conference or accept any questions from the media or anyone else. Hardly reassuring.
Sunak has said he wants UK to be a net zero finance hub and to that end wants publicly listed companies to disclose their climate metrics . But he’s not making it mandatory to meet net zero. Why not? At this stage of a global crisis, surely it’s not too much to ask that the biggest and richest companies should be cutting their emissions.
Dr Frederik Dahlmann, associate professor of sustainability at Warwick Business School said: “If the publication of these plans is not mandatory, companies will end up considering primarily public reputation benefits and commercial risk impacts from disclosure, rather than dedicate time and effort to plan their net zero strategies
“Moreover, in many cases, companies’ own carbon footprints are significantly outweighed by those of their supply chains. If these transition plans don’t cover all of so-called scope 3 emissions (and ideally impose similar reporting requirements on non-listed firms), the benefits of the proposal may be insufficient to really bend the emissions curve across the UK economy as a whole.
“Finally, the treasury has to explain what exactly happens with these transition plans once they have been reviewed. They may be useful for opening a wider discussion on decarbonisation within firms, but what are the consequences of failing to meet these self-imposed plans?”
Updated
The UK’s longest-lasting snow patch, in the Cairngorms in central Scotland, has melted for the eighth time in the past 300 years and the third time in the past five.
Found on the side of Braeriach, Scotland’s third highest mountain, the snow patch had previously melted fully in 1933, 1959, 1996, 2003, 2006, 2017 and 2018.
Snow researcher Iain Cameron said: “How ironic and prescient it is that our longest-lasting patch of snow melted for the third time in five years, right on the eve of Cop26.”
Libby Brooks has the full story here:
“Finance is becoming a window through which ambitious climate action can deliver a sustainable future that people all over the world are demanding,” says Carney.
He finishes on an optimistic note: “With GFanz, we have all the money needed for the transition. Our job is to find the plumbing to make it work.”
Carney hails the rapid increase in the amount of money being managed in line with net zero targets - up from $2tn a few years ago to $130tn today.
He says the new coalition of financial organisations making this commitment, the catchily-named GFanz, will be using “the most rigorous science-based scenarios” to form their plans, and that they will have to report on their progress annually. GFanz will have an advisory panel made of 20 independent experts and 7 NGOs to scrutinise the coalition’s progress, he adds.
Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England, is now speaking as part of the second finance session hosted by the UK presidency today. He’s also wearing a little “1.5C” badge on his lapel.
He opens by reminding the audience that a few years ago the climate crisis was seen in much of the finance industry as “someone else’s problem”, whereas now almost every major financial institution is factoring in the risks of climate breakdown to their decisions.
Carney says the finance industry needs to introduce rigorous climate stress testing, and the introduction of frameworks to handle stranded assets responsibly.
Guardian Australia’s resident cartoonist First Dog on the Moon has summed up the first few days of the conference by following the travels of Brenda the Civil Disobedience Penguin.
See the full cartoon here:
Campaigners have responded critically to Rishi Sunak’s announcement that the UK will become the world’s first net-zero aligned finance centre.
Charlie Kronick, senior climate adviser at Greenpeace UK, said: “This Cop demands transformative action in the financial sector but the chancellor has arrived with a marketing slogan.
“The world’s first net zero aligned financial centre would be one in which financial institutions and companies are required by law at the outset to bring their lending and investments in line with the global goal to limit warming to 1.5C. Instead, these new rules seem to allow plenty of wiggle room for financial institutions to continue with business as usual, rather than ‘rewiring’ the system as the chancellor claims.
“Transition pathways must be genuinely science-based, not determined by what industry participants in cosy alliances consider best practice at any given time. The chancellor is once again falling short of what the climate emergency requires.”
Early this morning police officers conducted a dawn raid and seized an eight-metre long Loch Ness Monster, which was to have been released on the River Clyde.
Campaigners said the monster “represents the growing threat of climate debt burdens for lower income countries, who have been prevented from discussing how debt is sabotaging their climate response at Cop26”. They say richer countries should cancel poor countries’ debt.
My colleague Nina Lakhani has been spending time with indigenous groups who say they are being excluded from negotiations and that the structures of the Cop process are designed to keep power in the hands of those who already have it.
In 2015, the Paris accords legally recognised the crucial role of traditional knowledge and innovations by local communities and indigenous peoples in understanding and tackling the climate crisis. The move was meant to ensure they could participate and influence international climate policies in a more meaningful and equal way.
But six years on, indigenous people interviewed by the Guardian say little has changed inside the UN-led negotiations, while outside environmental destruction continues unchecked in their communities and the impact of the climate crisis is getting worse.
Read the rest of her piece here:
Yellen, who has now wrapped up, has been pronouncing the name of host city Glasgow to rhyme with “now”, in line with US president Joe Biden and various American TV reporters.
Needless to say, Scottish Twitter has not welcomed this.
if I have to ken how arkansas is pronounced then you can learn it's no glass cow ya prick
— NeeNee 👑 (@QueenNeehola) November 1, 2021
Yellen says many renewables are now cheaper than fossil fuel alternatives, and that the cost of many green technologies is falling rapidly, meaning it makes business sense for companies to put their money into green industry.
She says it is essential to ensure the financial system is resilient to climate risks. Many fear that if there is a sudden rush away from fossil fuels by investors it could cause a financial crisis, as these assets could fall in value rapidly. For this reason, she says the US are putting a lot of resources into identifying risks and opportunities to invest in decarbonisation technologies.
Yellen says a price tag can be put on the action needed, and that it’s estimated at $100-150tn. She says a lot will depend on how public finance is used to direct adaptation and mitigation domestically.
She says the US is stepping up by quadrupling the level of international climate finance to more than $11bn a year by 2024.
Developing countries have said that this is still lower than is needed from the world’s largest economy, especially as the US bears an outsized historical responsibility for the climate crisis.
“Together we can deliver a clean resilient world. That is within our grasp,” Sharma says.
Next up is Janet Yellen, the US treasury secretary.
Sharma opens by talking about 1990s environmental activist Swampy, saying that while once he was a household name for his actions, “now there are Swampys all around us”.
Sharma says significant progress has been made, and that the $100bn climate aid target will be met by 2023 at the latest. The original target in the 2015 Paris agreement was 2020.
Sharma says many countries are raising their ambition and their pledges to developing countries. He says the private sector can be harnessed to “bring an entirely new sense of scale” and that he wants more money for adaptation, and more grants for developing countries.
Updated
Sunak wraps up his short speech by urging delegates to focus on making sure the finance sector plays its part in helping the industry become sustainable.
Next up, it’s Cop26 president Alok Sharma.
Sunak says he hopes to “rewire the entire financial system” to put it to use to protect the climate. He says the UK will become the UK’s first ever net zero aligned financial centre. This means companies will have a mandatory duty to set out their pathway to net zero, he says.
Sunak tells developing countries the G20 are stepping up and that the target of $100bn a year of climate finance for developing countries will be met, though he does not give a timeframe. The $100bn target was of the key pledges in the Paris agreement but poor countries have been critical of wealthy countries for still not having reached it six years on. It would be seen as a major coup for the UK government if the target could be hit by the end of the conference, but the total is still several billion short.
Rishi Sunak has taken the stage after being introduced by a rather hectic video featuring a very loud alarm clock.
“I look around this hall and I feel optimism,” says Sunak. He says it is the first Cop to bring the finance industry together with such a common purpose.
“The good news is that the will is there - 80% of the world economy has committed to net zero or carbon neutrality,” he says.
UK chancellor Rishi Sunak has arrived at the conference centre bearing a green version of the traditionally red Budget briefcase.
He’ll be speaking shortly about the UK’s plans to move the financial system towards net zero. If you want to watch him speak, you can find a live stream here.
My colleague George Monbiot has written about the need to keep fossil fuels in the ground:
It really is this simple. We have the technology required to replace fossil fuels. There’s plenty of money, which is currently being squandered on the destruction of life on Earth. The transition could take place in months, if governments willed it. The only thing that stands in the way is the power of legacy industries and the people who profit from them.
Read the full piece here:
Welcome to the Guardian’s coverage of day 3 of the Cop26 climate conference.
Overnight, we got news that hundreds of major financial institutions have committed to align their assets with a net zero target by 2050. The UK government sees this as one of the major achievements of the conference, though critics have pointed out that the pledge does not stop the investors from financing fossil fuels in the short term.
UK chancellor Rishi Sunak will announce this morning that London will become the world’s “first net zero finance centre” - we’ll cover his press conference on that from about 9am.
We also saw an attribution study released overnight that found Europe’s record-breaking hot summer would have been virtually impossible without anthropogenic global heating. The researchers found we can now expect similarly hot summers roughly once every three years, when before the climate crisis it would have been roughly every 10,000 years.
Here’s what to expect today:
9am: Rishi Sunak gives a press conference
10.15am: Mark Carney speaks at a finance event
1.45pm: press conference hosted by the UK Cop26 presidency
We’ll also keep you up to date with the various protests, pledges, discussions and other happenings around Glasgow.
Please feel free to get in touch with me by email at alan.evans@theguardian.com or via Twitter at @itsalanevans.
