Closing 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:
- Boris Johnson has declared he is “cautiously optimistic” about a deal at Cop26 to keep global temperature rises below 1.5C as he urged China to commit to bringing emissions down by 2025.
- The US president, Joe Biden, has announced a pledge to cut global methane emissions by 30% by 2030. Reducing these emissions was touted as one of the most immediate opportunities to slow global heating ahead of the summit.
- A plan to coordinate the introduction of clean technologies in order to rapidly drive down their cost has been agreed at the Cop26 summit by world leaders, including the UK, US, India and China.
- The prime minister of Rwanda has told of how his country has witnessed the impact of climate change “first hand, including floods, draughts and landslides have cost livelihoods ... and cost many lives.”
- African countries are preparing to spend at least $6bn a year from their tax revenues on adapting to the impacts of the climate crisis and are calling on the rich world to provide $2.5bn a year for the next five years to enable them to meet their goals.
- Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, has defended his trip to space telling delegates that it made him realise how “finite and fragile” the Earth is.
- And Police Scotland has apologised to women in Glasgow who had to walk home in darkness on Monday night after well-lit streets were blocked off due to Cop26 climate summit security concerns.
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Youth and Indigenous activists, and others most affected by climate change, staged an action marking the end of the World Leaders Summit just opposite the conference centre on Tuesday evening, calling on negotiators to “End Climate Betrayal” with concrete action over the next two weeks.
Holding up huge illuminated letters, the action follows on from the open letter to world leaders sent by Greta Thunberg, Vanessa Nakate and Mitzi Tan to enact a 5-point plan for the climate, which has been signed by more than one million people globally.
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More reaction to the Biden methane pledge from earlier today. Raymond Pierrehumbert, professor of physics at the University of Oxford, says: “As things stand, methane is mostly just a distraction from the main job of ridding the world economy of fossil fuel burning and its associated carbon dioxide emissions.”
Actions to control methane are only really useful if the planet is on track to achieve net zero carbon emissions in the next few decades. He said: “We are sadly not yet in that world, and until we are, methane is just a sideshow.”
Professor Myles Allen, professor of Geosystem science at Oxford, said a 30% cut in global methane emissions would reduce global temperatures by around one-tenth of a degree.
“Meanwhile, carbon dioxide emissions are driving temperatures up by over two-tenths of a degree per decade. Unless we get carbon dioxide on a path to net zero by mid-century, action on methane today won’t have much impact on peak warming,” he said.
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Johnson said companies and financial institutions have an important role in stopping deforestation and that consumer pressure is also key. Lastly, asked whether President Macron left early after falling out with the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson says: “We are working very closely with our French friends and partners on the things that matter most to the people of the world, which are climate change and reducing CO2.”
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Asked about India’s net zero target being for 2070, Johnson says: “I think the most important thing that they’ve said is that they want to decarbonise so much of their power system by 2030. That’s a massive commitment.”
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On China, he says it is engaging on the matter of climate change but that the world needs more progress from the Asian country. “I think we need China to make commitments, China has made a substantial commitment to move to net zero by the middle of the century, 2050 or before. Let’s see where we get to with China ... let’s see where that adds up to.” He adds that China has committed to stop financing overseas coal.
Asked about President Xi Jinping of China’s lack of attendance at Cop26, Johnson says you have to respect his decision not to come to the summit “because of the pandemic”. He said Russian president Vladimir Putin is not attending for the same reason.
If we don’t fix our climate, it will be an economic catastrophe - Johnson
More from Johnson: “If we don’t fix our climate, it will be an economic catastrophe. I also happen to think there is a great wisdom in the British people that think this is an issue that needs to be fixed.”
He refers to a graph presented yesterday by Sir David Attenborough depicting the increase in CO2 emissions. “They can see that, they’re not dumb,” he says.
He says the climate crisis will be tackled by creating high-wage, high-skilled jobs in green technologies.
Asked by a Daily Express journalist whether there should be a public vote on net zero, he says: “As for your brilliant suggestion of a referendum, I think this country has had quite enough referendums to be getting on with.”
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Speaking about the impact of the climate crisis, Johnson says: “When it comes to helping countries to transition, there is a huge amount to do. We have the tools to do it. And we certainly have, in theory, the finance to do it. Mark Carney would say hundreds of trillions of dollars, others would say tens of trillions, that can be leveraged by the public sector and by our investment. But I’m not going to disagree with anyone that says the world has a lot more to do.”
Boris Johnson tells the BBC’s Laura Kuenssburg that we are starting to see the plans behind the pledges made in Paris in 2015. He says: “I think what you are starting to see here is a sense of how actually you can deliver those cuts in CO2.” However, he admits there is still a lot of work to do to put plans into practice.
“The world leaders may be leaving, but the eyes of the world are on our negotiators and we have your numbers,” says Johnson, who is due to fly back to London this evening.
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Johnson continues: “We’ve been asking for action on coal, cars, cash and trees and after just a couple of days we can certainly begin to tick three of those boxes – we are beginning to write the tick.
“That’s all happened because we have been able to come together in Glasgow.”
He goes on to say that the clock in the doomsday scenario is still ticking but says “we have a bomb disposal team on site and they are starting to snip some of the wires, some of the right wires I hope.”
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Johnson is reeling off what he perceives to be successes from the Cop26 summit so far. He says that 90% of the world’s economy is now working towards net zero, including “India keeping 1bn tonnes of carbon out of the atmosphere by switching half its power grid to renewable energy”. He added: “It’s not just that we are putting forward better or bigger targets but the world is putting forward the plans to reach those targets.”
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Johnson adds: “90% of the world has now signed up to net zero including India,” in reference to yesterday’s announcement from India. “We will keep working with world leaders to get to net zero sooner.”
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Boris Johnson ‘cautiously optimistic’ about reaching 1.5C deal
Johnson starting to speak: “We must take care to guard against false hope... still a very long way to go. I am cautiously optimistic... After two days of talks we’ve pulled back a goal or two from being 1-5 down.”
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‘You can shove your climate crisis up your arse’: Greta Thunberg sings at Cop26
As we wait for Boris Johnson’s press conference we can update you with some choice words that climate activist Greta Thunberg had for the world leaders inside the Cop26 conference in Glasgow.
Joined by some of the many activists rallying around the climate change meeting, Thunberg decried inaction from politicians and big business, saying: “We are not going to let them get away with it anymore.”
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Boris Johnson to give press conference
The Boris Johnson press conference is due to start at 5pm today. We will be covering Cop26 related updates here on this blog. For other non-Cop26 updates please follow my colleagues on the Guardian’s UK politics live blog.
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'We have seen firsthand the impact of climate change' says Rwanda PM
The prime minister of Rwanda has told of how his country has witnessed the impact of climate change “first hand”.
Édouard Ngirente told the Cop26 summit: “We have fallen short of our duty to both people and the planet if we don’t urgently address climate change. In Rwanda, we have seen first hand the impact of climate change – floods, draughts and landslides have cost livelihoods ... and cost many lives.”
He called on world leaders to “keep alive” the 1.5C warming target and said Rwanda “pledges its full support for inclusive and transparent negotiation and dialogue between partners around the world”.
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The EU has pledged €1bn to protect the world’s forests, after world leaders agreed a deal to halt and reverse global deforestation over the next decade.
China, the US and Brazil are among the countries that have signed up to the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use, which aims to protect vast areas of land, from tropical rainforests to Siberian taiga.
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced the money on Tuesday and said forest protection was an integral part of the EU’s trade deals, such as with Japan.
“Forests are the green lungs of the earth. We need to protect and restore them. I gladly announce that we are pledging €1 billion to protect world forests. This is a clear sign of the EU’s commitment to lead global change to protect our planet, in line with our EU Green Deal.”
Of the EU’s €1bn, €250m will go to the Congo basin, home to the world’s second-largest rainforest.
Von der Leyen also said the Commission would propose an EU regulation to prevent deforestation driven by EU consumption. Leaked versions of the draft law – due to be published the week after COP26 negotiations conclude – have already been criticised by scientists for incorrect use of data and by NGOs for failure to protect vulnerable grasslands and wetlands that are rich in biodiversity.
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In a major step forward for ocean conservation in the global south, four Pacific-facing Latin American nations have said they will create what is essentially a mega-MPA – a huge interconnected marine protection area in one of the world’s richest pockets of ocean biodiversity.
Panama, Ecuador, Colombia and Costa Rica said the Eastern Tropical Pacific Marine Corridor (CMAR) would not only join but expand their protected territorial waters to create a fishing-free corridor of ocean.
The area is one of the world’s most important migratory routes for sea turtles, whales, sharks and rays, but has been under threat from mostly foreign industrial fishing vessels, predominantly huge Chinese “distant fleets”, as well as illegal, underreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing by locals.
Ecuador took the first step earlier today, by announcing it would expand the current area of the Galápagos marine reserve by about 60,000 sq km.
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Greenpeace has put out a statement responding to the earlier US and EU-led pledge to cut global methane emissions by 30% by 2030. Juan Pablo Osornio, head of the Greenpeace delegation at Cop26, has said:
The IPCC says we need to cut all emissions in half by 2030 if we hope to keep global temperature rises within 1.5C. If we drastically slash fossil fuels we’d cut methane and carbon emissions at the same time, and have a much better chance of meeting that goal. And by not including meat reduction or pledges to change people’s diets in this commitment, governments are giving a free pass to big agriculture.
All roads end up pointing to the need to eliminate fossil fuels from our energy system and phasing out industrial meat and dairy from our diets as soon as possible. This announcement dodges what’s needed.”
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If you wondered how optimistic climate scientists are about whether world leaders can tackle the climate crisis, the answer is, sadly, not very.
An anonymous survey by Nature found many to be anxious or distressed, with six in ten of the respondents expecting the world to warm by at least 3C by the end of the century, compared with what conditions were like before the Industrial Revolution.
New survey finds that roughly half of IPCC AR6 authors expect 3C warming by 2100 🌡️
— Ayesha Tandon (@AyeshaTandon) November 2, 2021
88% think climate change is a "crisis" 🌍
And almost two thirds "experience anxiety, grief or other distress because of concerns over climate change" 😧 pic.twitter.com/iC59BWbw0J
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The Irish premier, Micheál Martin, has said countries in the developed world have “an obligation” to support the nations most impacted by climate change.
The taoiseach announced that Ireland would double its contribution to developing countries and would deliver at least €225m a year by 2025. He said: “If we act decisively now, we will offer humanity the most valuable prize of all, a liveable planet. We can achieve a cooler world. A biodiverse world. A world with healthier air for us to breathe, healthier soil for things to grow in. A world in which people can live more sustainable lives, handing a healing and enriched planet to future generations.”
He added: “Those of us in the developed world, those who have, frankly, contributed most to the problems that confront us all have an obligation to support those who are most acutely challenged by their consequences. Ireland accepts that obligation.”
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The director and actor Fehinti Balogun has been at the conference this week talking about his show Can I live?, which uses hip-hop and spoken word to explore the ways people of colour have been excluded from environmental activism.
Giving a speech last night, he said:
I wanted to speak on behalf of the people this show represents: my mum, my cousins, my aunties, my uncles, my siblings, the people that look like me, that come from the places I come from. What would they want me to say? It is probably not about carbon credits or legislation. It’d be much simpler. I imagine it’d be a question: What are you gonna do? I mean ‘you’ because it’s hard to feel like ‘we’ when you often feel like them or other. It’s hard to say we when it is clear that we don’t have the same immediate power as you.
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The UK environment minister Zac Goldsmith has been speaking about the pledges by 114 world leaders to end deforestation and land degradation by the end of the decade, which has been coordinating behind the scenes ahead of Cop26.
Although there has been great fanfare about the deal today, even backed by Xi Jinping and Jair Bolsonaro, it remains unclear about how commitments will be tracked and what ending deforestation actually means.
“Clearly, monitoring is essential. There’s a lot of work going on at the moment to figure out exactly how different ecosystems in different parts of the world can be measured. But I am not convinced there is a single answer,” Lord Goldsmith said.
“We’re talking about very significant sums of money. And of course, it’s public money. So the public will want to know that that money is being spent properly. That hasn’t always been the case in the past in relation to well intentioned investments to try and stop deforestation.
“Countries making the Glasgow forest pledge will need to be able to demonstrate that money is being invested and it’s not being spent to subsidise failure.”
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Sauli Niinistö, the president of Finland, has reiterated the pledge for his country to become carbon-neutral by 2035.
He said: “Ensuring adequate climate finance is crucial - Finland is doing its part by almost doubling its climate finance to developing countries.”
He also told the Cop26 conference that as an Arctic country, Finland is “particularly concerned about the fast-warming Arctic region”.
He said that as the most forested country in Europe, every year 150 million trees are planted in Finland, adding that “globally we need to strengthen efforts to halt forest loss... Now it is the time to deliver on our pledges and shoulder our human responsibilities,” he said.
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The US president, Joe Biden, has told the Cop26 summit that “our current technology alone won’t get us to where we need to be”.
Speaking in Glasgow, the president insisted that setting ambitious climate targets was “only half the equation” and announced the launch of the First Movers Coalition.
The coalition will bring together “more than two dozen of the world’s largest, most innovative companies” from eight sectors contributing emissions. He also said innovation should not be restricted to just the industrial sector but highlighted the “vital part to play” for the agricultural sector also.
The US would lead by example and share innovations, he added. “There is virtually nothing we are unable to do, particularly if we do it together,” he said.
The First Movers Coalition is part of the Breakthrough Agenda announced earlier this afternoon – a global plan to drive down the cost of clean technologies. My colleague Damian Carrington has a writeup of that story.
Meanwhile, it seems Biden was given a very special welcome to Scotland this morning on his journey to Glasgow.
From the White House pool report on @POTUS journey from Edinburgh to Glasgow:
— Jon Sopel (@BBCJonSopel) November 2, 2021
‘At one point when we were still on smaller country roads, a large, naked Scottish man stood in his front window taking a picture of the motorcade with his phone.’
Welcome to Scotland, Mr President
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We have not done enough to get to 1.5C yet - PM spokesperson
Boris Johnson’s spokesman has sounded a more upbeat note about Cop26 today compared with the prime minister’s words at the weekend, warning about the risk of failure at Glasgow.
The UK as hosts are understood to be pleased by progress on forests and the new 2030 commitment from India, but acknowledge that work on climate financing is proving very difficult.
Asked whether Johnson’s weekend gloom had been expectation management, the spokesman said: “The PM felt very much at the G20 that limited progress was made but was by no means the significant boost that was needed. What we’ve seen so far is some early signs that we are starting to make some progress. Again, we are not complacent. This is not a done deal by any means. There is a huge amount of work left to do.
“Currently we are at 2.7C and there is work to do to consider exactly what the commitments announced do to bring that down further, but we have absolutely not done enough to get us to 1.5 so the pressure will be kept up absolutely. It is just important to recognise when countries, when leaders do step up and make commitments that do require change, challenges and significant sums of investment.”
Johnson has still not made a decision on whether to come back at the end of Cop26, and could make a statement from Downing Street on what is agreed rather than heading up to Glasgow again.
Johnson is due to give a press conference at 5pm today before flying back to London.
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Extinction Rebellion protest in Glasgow
About 150 Extinction Rebellion activists have blocked Waterloo Street outside JP Morgan’s Glasgow offices. Protesters banged drums and chanted slogans highlighting the bank’s continued investment in fossil fuels as a sizeable police presence watched on.
The protest, dubbed the “trillion-dollar bash”, then marched through busy streets and past Morgan Stanley’s offices before a wall of police blocked it from crossing the M8 motorway about 10 minutes from the SEC, where Cop26 is being held.
Police face off against Extinction Rebellion marchers headed towards #COP26 in Glasgow pic.twitter.com/Q16XtQcRub
— Jamie Macwhirter (@jamiemacwhirter) November 2, 2021
Extinction Rebellion protesters on the march in Glasgow after blocking the road outside J.P Morgan's offices pic.twitter.com/LBEvxOUhdi
— Jamie Macwhirter (@jamiemacwhirter) November 2, 2021
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A plan to coordinate the introduction of clean technologies in order to rapidly drive down their cost has been agreed at the Cop26 summit by world leaders, including the UK, US, India and China.
A global transition to green energy and vehicles is vital in tackling the climate crisis and economies of scale mean that costs plummet as production ramps up, as already seen with solar panels and LED lightbulbs.
Countries said they would align standards and coordinate investments to speed up production and bring forward the “tipping point” at which green technologies are more affordable and accessible than the fossil-fuelled alternatives.
The first five breakthroughs being targeted are clean electricity, electric vehicles, green steel, hydrogen and sustainable farming, aiming to make these affordable and available to all nations by 2030 and potentially creating 20m new jobs.
Boris Johnson said:
By making clean technology the most affordable, accessible and attractive choice, the default go-to in what are currently the most polluting sectors, we can cut emissions right around the world
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Bezos defends space trip
Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, has told delegates at Cop26 that his trip to space made him realise how “finite and fragile” the Earth is.
Bezos said: “I was told that seeing the Earth from space changes the lens from which you view the world. But I was not prepared for just how much that would be true.”
Prince William had criticised billionaires embroiled in a space tourism race, saying the world’s greatest minds needed to focus on fixing the Earth instead.
Bezos also told delegates that Amazon aims to power all its operations by 100% renewable energy by 2025 and is working to convert its delivery fleet to electrical vehicles.
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US to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030
The US president, Joe Biden, has just announced a pledge to cut global methane emissions by 30% by 2030.
As my colleague Patrick Wintour reported this morning, the US is leading an alliance of 90 countries to set out new regulatory measures to limit global methane emissions by 30% from 2020 levels by the end of the decade. China, India and Russia have not joined the pact known as the Global Methane Pledge.
Although methane breaks down relatively quickly in the atmosphere, it is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Reducing these emissions was touted as one of the most immediate opportunities to slow global heating ahead of the summit.
This is what Durwood Zaelke, a lead reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said in August:
Cutting methane is the biggest opportunity to slow warming between now and 2040.
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In response to today’s announcement to end deforestation by 2030, Yadvinder Malhi, a professor of ecosystem science at the University of Oxford, said it was a “Paris moment” for forests.
“In Paris in 2016 the world’s leaders committed to recognise the concept of net zero, to draw a line in the sand around how much greenhouse gases can be allowed into the atmosphere,” he said. “Now in Glasgow they have committed to a similar aspiration for deforestation and land degradation, to stop and start reversing these by 2030.”
More financial commitment would be needed, but it was striking to see such a significant declaration, especially one including big rainforest nations such as Brazil, Indonesia and DRC, Prof Malhi said.
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Police in Glasgow have apologised after it emerged that women walking home after dark on Monday were stopped from using well-lit streets near the Cop26 summit, and told to use badly-lit routes instead.
Residents near the Scottish Exhibition Centre venue on the Clyde said police told them to walk long distances through Kelvingrove park and other side streets to get to their homes, because more direct routes were shut down for security reasons. One claimed she was followed by a male officer, despite asking him to leave her.
Police Scotland, which recently unveiled an enhanced strategy to promote women’s safety, said those diversions were temporary and imposed at short notice due to “real-time changes to operational plans.”
Assistant chief constable Gary Ritchie said the diversion would not be introduced, and the force would talk to Glasgow city council about improved lighting in Kelvingrove park.
“While late changes and some level of disruption is inevitable when policing an event the size and scale of Cop26, we understand and apologise for the concern these changes caused and for the inconvenience to those diverted.
“We do, in particular, recognise and acknowledge the commentary from some women who had to walk through the park on their own last night, we want to keep everyone safe and we know that the onus is on us to recognise when we could provide some more support and visibility to reassure people in our communities.”
I know that #COP26 is a big logistical challenge but I've just heard first hand that women on foot on their own are being diverted and directed to walk through Kelvingrove Park alone in the pitch black because Argyle St / Dumbarton Rd is closed?
— Claire Stewart (@claireontoast) November 1, 2021
Not safe.
Wow, Finnieston residents currently on the north side of the street who live on the south side of the street being told to walk through Kelvingrove, down Byres Road to Patrick and then back to Finnieston to get to their flat 100yards away. It’s dark. #COP26
— KayIeigh Quinn (@kayleighmqu) November 1, 2021
UPDATE: My colleague Nina Lakhani has said:
This happened to me last night! I had to walk back through unlit Kelvingrove Park, took an extra 30 minutes and was damn dangerous with the wet leaves. I asked a cop how I was meant to get home, and he suggested I come back the following day!
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We’re expecting to hear more speeches from World leaders this afternoon, including major oil exporters Kuwait and Bahrain. Last week, Bahrain joined Saudi Arabia in pledging to reach net zero emissions by 2060.
A leak of documents prior to the conference found the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) was lobbying the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to remove recommendations that the world needs to phase out fossil fuels.
Tom Levitt here taking over the live blog 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.
• This post was amended on 2 November 2021 to remove an incorrect suggestion that Bahrain is a member of Opec.
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Lunchtime summary
It’s been a busy morning, as world leaders continued to make their statements, a massive forestry deal was announced which aims to halt and reverse global deforestation over the next decade.
The key events so far:
African countries will spend $6bn on adapting to climate impacts, says our environment correspondent Fiona Harvey. African countries are preparing to spend at least $6bn a year from their tax revenues on adapting to the impacts of the climate crisis and are calling on the rich world to provide $2.5bn a year for the next five years to enable them to meet their goals.
‘You might as well bomb us’, Surangel Whipps Jr, the president of Palau, told world leaders, speaking of the pain of watching his country suffer “a slow and painful death”.
Ecuador to massively expand protected reserve around Galápagos islands, Guillermo Lasso Mendoza, Ecuador’s president, announced. The country would add an additional 60,000 sq km of protected ocean to the 130,000 sq km that already exist around the islands.
World leaders agree deal to end deforestation, as we reported this morning. Xi Jinping, Jair Bolsonaro and Joe Biden are among the leaders signing the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forest and Land Use.
And the US has rejoined the High Ambition Coalition, with the goal of achieving 1.5C goal at UN climate talks.
It’s been a pleasure - my colleague Tom Levitt will now take over the blog for the rest of the afternoon.
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The Albanian prime minister, Edi Rama, has asked rich nations how long his country, a non-polluter, has to “continue to do the right thing alone”.
He said: “How long do we have to pay the price, first for the contribution to climate change of the big guys, then for their failure to remedy its consequences?”
He bemoans the fact that Albania is forced to buy energy in winter when prices sky-rocket and, because of dry weather, the nation’s hydropower plants cannot meet demand. He added his country is “100% renewable” but said it cannot afford to wait around for “markets to move in the right direction” and called for international financial support through “grants, not loans”.
“It is a noble stance to refuse any mixing of fossil fuels with our 100% renewable energy production. Some of the guys here may be able to afford it but for us it is literally a daily struggle,” he said.
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At a packed event at the Scotland Pavilion, the Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has made a statement calling for women and girls to be at the forefront of climate change discussions.
The joint statement from the Scottish government and UN Women recognises that women and girls are commonly disproportionately affected by climate change.
In a panel discussion with the prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina; the president of Tanzania, Samia Suluhu Hassan and the prime minister of Estonia, Kaja Kallas, Sturgeon noted that girls were more likely to be taken out of school and women less able to find alternative forms of work as a result of climate impacts.
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African countries will spend $6bn on adapting to climate impacts
African countries are preparing to spend at least $6bn a year from their tax revenues on adapting to the impacts of the climate crisis and are calling on the rich world to provide $2.5bn a year for the next five years to enable them to meet their goals.
Félix Tshisekedi, the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo and chair of the African Union, will today call on countries and philanthropist who have pledged help to Africa in the past to step forward.
He has in mind countries such as the US, Canada and the EU bloc, and the tech mogul Bill Gates, who are expected to attend a meeting with the African Union later on Tuesday.
The African adaptation Acceleration Plan was set out at the Paris summit in 2015 but remains largely unfunded as donors have been slow to come up with cash.
Adaptation to the impacts of the climate crisis is a key issue at these talks. Africa is already facing serious impacts from climate breakdown in the form of long and deep droughts, flooding and storm surges in coastal areas, rising temperatures and heatwaves and damaging impacts on agriculture.
But funding for adaptation has lagged well behind that for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
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Norway will double its climate financing contribution, Jonas Gahr Støre, the prime minister of Norway, has told Cop26, reiterating his country’s commitment to reducing its emissions and helping others to reduce theirs.
He said: “We come to Glasgow with three firm commitments. First, we will follow up on the invitation by the British hosts, we are ready to double our climate financing contribution to more than $1.6bn by 2026.”
He said Norway would work with development partners to help with renewable energy transition and to “phase out coal”, as well as launching a new climate investment initiative to help fund renewable energy in developing countries.
“Second ... to work with business, industry and social partners to help us all succeed towards a renewable, circular and sustainable future,” he said.
Støre said the Scandinavian country would “develop an export technology that can be used beyond our borders”.
Finally, the prime minister insisted that the financial sector “must play its part” and announced that the Norwegian public pension fund would take the lead in responsible investment, basing its work on an overall long-term goal of net zero emissions from the companies it invests in.
He concluded: “We cannot allow the inaction of some to be an argument for failing to take action together by the rest of us. Now is the time to step up.”
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Happy news! The UK has actually won something. Okay, it’s not really an honour: every day at every Cop, Climate Action Network hands out the ‘Fossil of the day award’ and yesterday they gave it to the UK Cop hosts.
“CAN asked for a Cop postponement as we feared people from the developing world wouldn’t be able to come and advocate for climate justice in the face of the global Covid-19 pandemic,” they said in a statement.
“But the UK presidency insisted that Cop26 was going ahead and was prepared to welcome the global community to ‘the most inclusive Cop ever’. This spirit of inclusivity has showcased what the Brits do best – the art of queuing – for hours in some cases.
“People who have invested time and resources to travel to Glasgow have waited patiently only to find there is ‘no room at the inn’ for civil society and told to ‘join events online’ – to then find they were offline.”
Tuntiak Katan, a leader of Ecuador’s Indigenous Shuar people who serves as general coordinator of the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities, has said: “We’re here to tell world leaders across the planet that indigenous people are here to make a pact for life – there is no more time, don’t make political promises or financial announcements about the climate if you are not going to keep them.
“The decisions we make today will make the difference between whether we’re going to live, or we’re all going to perish.”
He cautiously welcomed the $1.7bn of funding led by the governments of the UK, US, Germany, Norway and the Netherlands, but emphasised that what happens next is crucial. “The UK is now at a crossroads: they can either use our presence as a photo op, or they can choose to become a global champion for indigenous peoples and local communities,” he told the Guardian.
Other campaigners said the pledge was a “first step” in making indigenous rights central to the climate crisis.
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No show by the Brazil delegation today at a press conference, where they were scheduled to talk on the subject of “strong environmental defence”. Make of that what you will.
It follows a somewhat frosty reception for Jair Bolsonaro at last weekend’s G20 summit and a decidedly lukewarm reaction to Brazil’s latest climate plan.
“I do not think anyone in Nigeria needs persuading of the need for urgent action,” Muhammadu Buhari, the president of Nigeria, has told world leaders. “For Nigeria, climate change is not about the perils of tomorrow but about what is happening today.
“In our lifetime nature has gone from a vast expanse of biodiversity to a shadow of itself.”
He points out, however, that they want to find a way to make a clean transition. “Nigeria is not looking to make the same mistakes that have been repeated for decades by others – we are looking for innovation in technology and finance to make a cleaner transition.”
He also references his government’s commitment to electrifying 5 million households using decentralised solar energy solutions.
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Pension funds in the Nordic countries and UK have announced they will invest $130bn in clean energy and climate projects by 2030. As part of this commitment, the funds will also report every year on the progress of their climate investments.
“Green transition requires massive investments,” said Mette Frederiksen, the prime minister of Denmark. “Governments have to do their part but we also need private investors on board.”
Peter Damgaard Jensen, a co-chair of the Climate Investment Coalition, said: “These critical steps ensure pensions take advantage of the enormous opportunities of the green transition, help spur immediate solutions to lower carbon emissions, while protecting our savings against the ravages of climate change.”
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Joe Biden has described Build Back Better World, a G7-launched project to help create sustainable infrastructure in lower-income countries, as a means to promote not just greener economies, but also democracy.
Speaking at a Cop26 event alongside Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, the US president set out a series of priorities for the scheme, known as B3W for short, including climate resilience and local partnerships.
He also added: “We have to show – and I think we will show – that democracy is still the best way for delivering results.” This latter focus is notable given B3W has been seen in part as a riposte to China’s longer-running Belt and Road Initiative, a massive infrastructure plan for developing countries seen as a way for Beijing to increase its influence on such nations.
In his input, Johnson gave a nod to the UK’s plans to create new green employment, calling B3W “a global mission for jobs and growth”. In another look to his domestic audience, Johnson called it “global levelling up”.
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Systemic shifts are needed in order to provide a positive future for humans and nature, Prince Charles has just told Cop26. “We simply must talk about the solutions and actions we can start making, and taking, today,” he said.
He said the first action is to “reengineer the world economic system” and reward countries for protecting forests. He endorsed the 30x30 biodiversity target as “truly critical” to reach that objective, and said countries should receive natural capital investments for protecting ecosystems.
He highlighted the importance of honouring the rights of indigenous people and communities, saying that the rest of us have lost that “vital sixth sense” which stops us damaging nature in the first place. He finished by talking about the importance of changing how we produce and consume goods, decoupling production and consumption and building a more resilient circular economy.
“Frankly, we’ve all had enough talking, so we need to put our commitments into practice,” he said.
He says he has done speeches like this for the past 40 years all over the world, but to no avail. He hopes this one will be different.
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'You might as well bomb us' says president of Palau
The president of the Pacific island nation of Palau, Surangel Whipps Jr, told the Cop26 summit that parallels can be drawn between the climate crisis and the tradition Palau story of a boy who grew into a giant who “wouldn’t stop growing”.
“Due to his unruly appetite, the whole island community was forced to feed him ... depleting all the natural resources.”
The islanders ultimately set the boy on fire after he turned on them and tried to eat them. Whipps Jr said pointed out that the story was “eerily reminiscent” of today’s climate crisis.
“Large emitters with insatiable appetites are continuing to abuse our environment, threatening our very survival. Cop26 must light the fire.”
He added that “devastated” island nations such as Palau, demand that commitments of $100bn annually be increased to meet the $4tn the World Bank says is needed to tackle climate change.
“We see the scorching sun is giving us intolerable heat, the warming sea is invading us and the winds are blowing us every which way, our resources are disappearing before our eyes and our future is being robbed from us,” he added. “Frankly speaking, there is no dignity to a slow and painful death - you might as well bomb our islands instead of making us suffer only to witness our slow and painful demise.”
“Leaders of the G20, we are drowning and our only hope is the life-ring you are holding. You must act now, we must act together.”
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The Rainbow warrior is in Glasgow! Greenpeace sent their most famous ship up from Liverpool over the last couple of days: it sailed up the Clyde and docked yesterday.
Onboard, alongside the Greenpeace team, are Bernard Ewekia, Jakapita Kandanga, Edwin Namakanga, Maria Reyes and Farzana Faruk Jhumu, who have travelled with the aim of speaking up for the sidelined citizens of the global south. In a comment piece on the Guardian today they say:
In our home countries of Namibia, Bangladesh, Uganda, Mexico and Tuvalu in the South Pacific, we face many different challenges. But they are all exacerbated by the same injustices such as gender violence, forced migration and racial injustices, as well as the Covid-19 pandemic and the climate crisis. These are all symptoms of the same rotten system.
We have friends who have dropped out of school because droughts have forced their families into poverty and famine. Others are forced to literally sell their children in order to meet their basic needs. Many people have lost land, homes and crops to floods and rising sea levels. More are being forced to flee their homes and communities. And even just accessing safe drinking water is a daily struggle for many.
Thousands of people are dying right now because of the climate crisis: the world leaders at this summit have blood on their hands.
Mette Frederiksen, the prime minister of Denmark, has addressed the main conference on behalf of Greenland, informing the conference that “dramatic climate change is already visible there ... Greenland has halted all new oil and gas exploration”.
They believe that soon, 90% of the country’s electricity will be sustainably sourced.
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The Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, has announced that $2bn from the Bezos Earth fund has been allocated to stopping the destruction of nature. This is part of the $10bn initiative he announced last year for conservation, and follows a $1bn donation he pledged to focus on the Congo Basin, the tropical Andes and the Pacific Ocean.
“When people hanker for the good old days and glamourise the past, they are wrong. By almost all metrics, life is better ... There is a notable exception: the natural world is not better today than it was 500 years ago when we enjoyed unspoiled forest, clean rivers and the pristine air of the pre-industrial world,” he said.
Just in case you were wondering, he mentioned his trip to space ... again.
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As the queue to get into the conference centre shows no sign of reducing or indeed moving, activists on the south side of the river are calling on world leaders to stop playing games with the climate.
Dressed up as participants from the popular Netflix show Squid Game, these activists have assembled from across the globe under the banner Glasgow Actions to perform a series of eye-catching stunts during the early days of the summit.
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The Gabonese president, Ali Bongo, has just given a rousing speech at the forestry event in the Pen Y Fan room. The oil-rich nation is among the most forested countries in the world, with low rates of deforestation, and is home to the majority of the critically endangered African forest elephant. The world’s second-largest rainforest received £1.1bn in funding, including £200m from the UK, as part of the announcement on forests.
“The Congo basin is the heart and lungs of the African continent. We cannot win the battle [on the climate] without the Congo rainforest. Our forests send rain to the Sahell and the Ethiopian highlands. They are critical to the African continent. Yet, the international community has consistently undervalued this critical ecosystem,” President Bongo says. “It is my hope that Glasgow will mark a turning point.”
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Ecuador to massively expand protected reserve around Galápagos islands
Ecuador has announced it will expand the protected marine reserve surrounding the Galápagos Islands, “the jewel of our biodiversity and a genuine living laboratory.”
In a move long sought by local campaigners, Guillermo Lasso Mendoza, Ecuador’s president, said the country would add an additional 60,000 sq km of protected ocean to the 130,000 sq km that already exist around the islands.
He noted that the Galápagos, famed for its crucial role in helping Charles Darwin develop the theory of natural selection, “is confronting serious threats due to global warming, plastic waste and other imbalances which are undermining our biodiversity, our food security and our economic and social development”.
He added that the agreement was made via a “consensus between all of the involved sectors - fishing, tourism, conservation, and others”.
The Guardian has reported extensively on how “distant fleet” fishing vessels, predominantly from China, have been decimating crucial fish stocks, including squid, on the very edge of the current Galápagos marine reserve.
The new expansion “will not only strengthen the protection of the area’s biodiversity, but it will also bolster our combat against climate change”, Lasso said. The move should help fulfill Ecuador’s part of the UK-led 30 by 30 agreement, which commits to protecting at least 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030.
In one note that may worry campaigners, Lasso also noted that the agreement would help achieve “growth in productivity for artisanal and industrial fishing”.
The presidents of four Latin American countries, including Ecuador, are today expected to announce the merging of their marine protected areas into a “mega-MPA”.
Klaus Werner Iohannis, the president of Romania, is speaking now. “There is no silver bullet against climate change. But a set of interconnected measures can help us deliver.
“Romania has 40% of our electricity coming from renewable sources. We will expand this and fight climate change with nature-based solutions.”
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Meanwhile, at the forestry event, the US president has said that conserving the world’s forests and other critical systems is indispensable to meeting climate targets. He says forests provide clean water, host biodiversity and are home to indigenous communities.
“Forests have the potential to reduce carbon globally by more than one third globally,” Biden tells the event, mentioning his decision to commit the US to protect 30% of land and sea by the end of the decade, including Tongass national forest in Alaska, the world’s largest temperate rainforest.
Biden said he is launching a new plan to conserve forests in the US and around the world. He says he will make sure markets recognise the economic value of carbon sinks and create sustainable supply chains.
“Let’s do this. It will have a generational impact,” he concludes.
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Insulate Britain protesters block carriageway near Manchester
Insulate Britain protesters have blocked a major carriageway near Manchester Airport, in one of the climate group’s first protests outside of London.
Footage from LBC on Twitter shows a small group of protestors in orange hi-vis jackets blocking the carriageway near the intersection of junction 6 of the M56 and the A538, as well as several police vans.
The campaign group, which calls on the government to fund a national home insulation programme, said that it was the seventeenth time it had caused disruption on major roads, as it had also blocked roads in Birmingham and London.
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) have asked travellers to avoid the area if possible and said they are “working at the scene to minimise disruption”. The airport said the protest had no impact on operations but warned those planning to travel to the airport that they should take the possible delays into account, in a statement reported by the Liverpool Echo.
On behalf of Insulate Britain, Gabby, 27, a graphic designer from Norwich said:
“We are taking our message to people outside of London because we want everyone to know that our government is killing our children. Britain should be leading the world with radical plans to decarbonise our society, instead our government is actively setting policies that will drive emissions higher. The public can close their eyes but this isn’t going away, no one is coming to save you. We are being betrayed. This government is colluding in genocide.”
The mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, condemned the group’s actions in a tweet:
I can’t see how this type of protest does anything other than alienate people from the climate cause.
— Andy Burnham (@AndyBurnhamGM) November 2, 2021
Have been reassured @gmpolice are working to get things moving as soon as possible. https://t.co/PN9d4lHdB0
Jeff Bezos has just arrived at the Cop26 forestry session, disappearing backstage with a small entourage including his partner, Lauren Sanchez. It’s not clear who he might be wanting to talk to at this session, but as well as Boris Johnson, Joe Biden is speaking now.
The White House continues to have a mixed summit. After the confusion between Edinburgh and Glasgow yesterday, it has emerged today that plans to fly US president Joe Biden to Glasgow by helicopter have hit a snag because there are fears that the military vehicle would sink into the ground.
🇺🇸Joe Biden is making his way from Edinburgh to Glasgow for the second day of #COP26
— Radio Forth News (@RadioForthNews) November 2, 2021
🗣But our senior reporter @BryanRutherford who’s outside the @DalmahoyHotel says the US President’s trip isn’t going quite according to plan👇 pic.twitter.com/kjgB7kDRkD
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Guillermo Lasso Mendoza, the president of Ecuador, is announcing a historic enlargement of the protected reserves around the historic Galapagos islands.
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UK PM Boris Johnson: 'Climate change and biodiversity are two sides of the same coin'
Boris Johnson, Iván Duque and the Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, have taken the stage. The UK begins by paying tribute to Sir David Attenborough, “a giant redwood of environmental campaigners”.
“Climate change and biodiversity are two sides of the same coin,” Johnson says. “We can’t tackle climate change without tackling biodiversity loss ... We have to stop the devastating loss of our forests.”
Johnson says if we want to keep 1.5C in sight under the Paris agreement, we must protect and restore the world’s forests. He says 110 leaders have now signed the declaration on halting and reversing forest loss and land degradation by the end of the decade. China, Russia and Brazil have all signed, he emphasises.
He says a partnership between governments, the private sector, indigenous communities and philanthropists is key to addressing the drivers of deforestation. He says consumers will be able to enjoy “guilt-free chocolate” that is not linked to deforestation. He says he wants to mobilise global finance to protect nature.
“Let’s work together to protect the forests but ensure the forests return,” he concludes.
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Boris Johnson has kicked off a Cop26 session on deforestation with a typically lyrical paean to the need to preserve woodlands. Speaking on a panel alongside the Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, and the Colombian president, Iván Duque, Johnson peppered his speech with descriptions of “our three million-pillared cathedrals” and - in a section likely to have been challenging for the translators - some words on the need for “carbon guilt-free chocolate”.
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There was fury and frustration when it emerged that Karine Elharrar, Israel’s energy and water resources minister, who has muscular dystrophy, had been forced to wait for two hours outside after organisers refused to let her enter the compound in the vehicle in which she had arrived, she said.
Her office said she was eventually offered a shuttle transport to the summit area, but the shuttle was not wheelchair-accessible, forcing her to return to her hotel in Edinburgh.
Elharrar wrote on Twitter: “I came to Cop26 to meet with my counterparts around the world and promote a common struggle in the climate crisis. It is sad that the UN, which promotes accessibility for people with disabilities, in 2021, does not provide accessibility to its events.”
אל COP26 הגעתי כדי להפגש עם מקביליי בעולם ולקדם מאבק משותף במשבר האקלים. עצוב שהאו״ם המקדם נגישות לאנשים עם מוגבלויות, בשנת 2021, לא דואג לנגישות באירועיו.
— קארין אלהרר 🟠 Karine Elharrar (@KElharrar) November 1, 2021
מקווה שיופקו הלקחים הנדרשים כדי שמחר קידום אנרגיות ירוקות, הסרת חסמים והתייעלות באנרגיה יהיו הדברים שאתעסק בהם.
It does appear that there is provision for wheelchair-users at the centre.
The UK environment secretary, George Eustice, said: “We deeply regret that incident.” He added there appeared to have been a miscommunication and organisers had not been aware of Elharrar’s requirements in advance and so had not made the right provisions at the particular entrance she was coming to.
“I know that at most of the other entrances, wheelchair access is there. It was because she came to an entrance where they didn’t have that provision,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, adding that action should have been taken to resolve the issue.
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US rejoins High Ambition Coalition
Our environment correspondent, Fiona Harvey, has just revealed that the US is to rejoin the High Ambition Coalition.
This is really excellent news: the HAC is a group that was formed in the run-up to Paris by the chief negotiator for the Marshall Islands, Tony de Brum. It set the goal of holding temperatures to 1.5C. As Fiona writes:
The goal of holding temperature rises to 1.5C rather than 2C is much harder to achieve, as it requires emissions cuts of at least 45% by 2030, compared with 2010 levels. But science shows it is much safer – beyond 1.5C, many of the impacts of climate breakdown, such as melting ice sheets, become irreversible, and many small islands would face inundation from rising sea levels and storm surges.
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So far the queues have been one of the most memorable things about Cop26. There were brief hopes that that problem had been dealt with this morning after the organisers put out cordons.
Unfortunately a hour or so later the situation had deteriorated and the queues were back. Maybe it’s just the way we prefer to do things here.
Good morning! Welcome to day two of Cop26, where today the US president Joe Biden will unveil a plan to control methane, regarded by the administration as the single most potent way to combat the climate crisis in the short term. Our colleague Patrick Wintour has written about it below.
We’ll be covering all the main events of the day, including the second day of leaders’ speeches, and some key announcements around green technology. You can reach me on bibi.vanderzee@theguardian.com, or on twitter @bibivanderzee with your tips and suggestions.
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