AFP UK

Ecuador proposed Monday to enlarge the Galapagos nature reserve, famous for its giant tortoises, by some 60,000 square kilometers and finance it with a debt swap.

President Guillermo Lasso announced the move at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.

The Galapagos, an archipelago located 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) off the coast of Ecuador, takes its name from the gigantic tortoises that live there.

The islands were made famous by British geologist and naturalist Charles Darwin’s observations on evolution there.

They host a reserve of some 130,000 square kilometers (50,200 square miles), the world’s second-largest and home to some 2,900 marine species. It is listed as a Natural World Heritage Site.

On Monday, Lasso said another 60,000 square kilometers would be added to the marine reserve established in 1998.

It would expand northward to include the Cocos Ridge, and would entail a ban on industrial fishing as well as subsistence fishing in some areas.

The move should be financed, Lasso said, by a “debt-for-conservation swap.”

Such transactions entail forgiving part of a developing nation’s debt in exchange for local investment in conservation programs.

Ecuador is in an economic down-spiral that has been aggravated by the coronavirus pandemic, with external debt at almost $46 billion, or 45 percent of GDP.

The country of 17.7 million people has seen recent protests against soaring fuel prices as the government cuts subsidies as required by the International Monetary Fund to reduce spending in exchange for loans.

“We estimate that this will be the highest amount for a debt swap so far in the world,” said the president.

“We will be very careful to evaluate each of the proposals in order to maximize the effects of conservation,” Lasso added.

According to Ecuador’s central bank, some 15.6 percent of the country’s debt is owed to other countries, including England, Spain and the United States.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature says protected areas play a vital role in climate change mitigation by limiting planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions and shielding communities from the worst impacts.

World leaders must act to “save humanity”, UN chief Antonio Guterres said on Monday as they met for the historic COP26 climate summit that observers said got under way with more talk than action.

More than 120 heads of state and government are gathering in Glasgow for a two-day summit at the start of the UN’s COP26 conference, which organisers say is crucial for charting humanity’s path away from catastrophic global warming. 

“It’s one minute to midnight… and we need to act now,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said to start proceedings on an at-times chaotic opening day. 

However, Monday’s most hotly anticipated address, from India’s Narendra Modi, tempered the hype somewhat: the third largest emitter will only achieve net-zero by 2070.

COP26 is being billed as vital for the continued viability of the Paris Agreement, which countries signed in 2015 by promising to limit global temperature rises to “well below” two degrees Celsius, and to work for a safer 1.5C cap.

With a little over 1C of warming since the Industrial Revolution, Earth is being battered by ever more extreme heatwaves, flooding and tropical storms supercharged by rising seas.

US President Joe Biden, addressing delegates, said that the current age of climate disaster was “an inflection point in world history”.

Pressure is on governments to redouble their emissions-cutting commitments to bring them in line with the Paris goals, and to stump up long-promised cash to help developing nations green their grids and protect themselves against future disasters.

“It’s time to say: enough,” Guterres said. 

“Enough of brutalising biodiversity. Enough of killing ourselves with carbon. Enough of burning and drilling and mining our way deeper. We are digging our own graves.”

– ‘We are watching’ –

Thousands of delegates queued around the block to get into the summit on Monday, negotiating airport-style security in the locked-down city centre.

On nearby streets, protesters began lively demonstrations to keep up the pressure. 

Swedish activist Greta Thunberg was among dozens of protesters who gathered in a park across the river from the conference centre carrying banners with slogans like “We are watching”.

They then marched across to directly opposite the venue chanting “We are unstoppable, another world is possible!”

Johnson warned of the “uncontainable” public anger if the conference fell flat. 

If the leaders “fluff our lines or miss our cue”, generations as-yet unborn “will not forgive us”, the prime minister said.

Biden apologised for his predecessor Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from the Paris deal, noting that one of his first actions on taking office this January had been to re-enter the accord.

Observers however were unimpressed with Monday’s announcements. 

“More is needed to turn words into action,” said Thomas Damassa, Oxfam America’s associate director for Climate Change.

“The US must work with other countries to secure a strong outcome that ratchets up emission reductions by major economies.”

– No Xi, Putin –

The G20 including China, India and Western nations committed on Sunday to the Paris goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C. 

They also agreed to end funding for new coal plants abroad without carbon capturing technology by the end of 2021.

But the precise pathway to 1.5C was left largely undefined and campaigners expressed disappointment with the group, which collectively emits nearly 80 percent of global carbon emissions.

Preparations for the high-level summit had been damped by a number of high-profile no-shows.

Neither Chinese President Xi Jinping — who has not left his country during the Covid-19 pandemic — nor Russia’s Vladimir Putin will be in Glasgow. 

And Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who last week drew ire from campaigners for his country’s “net-zero” plan, doubled down on a decarbonisation vision heavily reliant on future innovation.

“Technology will have the answers to a decarbonised economy, particularly over time,” he said. 

– Net-zero 2070 –

Most nations have already submitted their renewed emissions cutting plans — known as “nationally determined contributions”, or NDCs — in advance of COP26.

But even these current commitments — if followed — would still lead to a “catastrophic” warming of 2.7C, says the UN.

China, by far the world’s biggest carbon polluter, has just submitted to the UN its revised climate plan, which repeats a long-standing goal of peaking emissions by 2030. 

US-China tensions were simmering on Monday after Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan labelled Beijing among the “significant outliers”. 

China “will not be represented at leader level at COP26 and… has an obligation to step up to greater ambition as we go forward”, Sullivan added.

India meanwhile has yet to submit a revised NDC, a requirement under the Paris deal.

Modi said that his country would achieve net-zero emissions by 2070, and that 50 percent of its energy would come from renewable sources by 2030.

Another pressing issue is the failure of rich countries to deliver $100 billion annually to help climate-vulnerable nations adapt to climate change.

The goal — meant to be delivered last year — has been postponed to 2023, exacerbating tensions between richer nations, responsible for global warming, and those poorer countries that are the victims of its effects.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson will fly back to London from Glasgow rather than taking the train, Downing Street said Monday hours after he chided world leaders for not doing more on climate change.

Aviation — especially the private kind — is a bete noire of the environmental lobby as it emits vastly more carbon per passenger than other forms of transport. 

Hundreds of campaigners attending the COP26 conference in Scotland’s biggest city have come up from London by train, although the main line to Glasgow was hit by lengthy storm-related delays Sunday.

Johnson flew in to COP26 late Sunday from Rome, where he was attending a weekend G20 summit, aboard a chartered Airbus plane painted in a patriotic UK livery.

He will use the same jet to return to London on Tuesday, his office said, after opening a two-day COP26 summit by warning that future generations “will not forgive us” if leaders fail to act.

“It’s important that the prime minister is able to move around the country and we face significant time constraints,” Johnson’s spokesman told reporters in Glasgow.

London is 60-90 minutes from Glasgow by plane on average, while the train journey can take more than five hours.

“The fuel we are using is sustainable and the emissions are offset as well,” the spokesman stressed.

He added that under Johnson’s leadership, Britain was “leading the way on efforts to get to net zero”.

Other leaders have echoed Johnson’s demands for climate change action but also face criticism for their own transportation choices.

US President Joe Biden’s convoy in Rome numbered more than 80 vehicles, led by his bomb-proof car “The Beast”, which is not known for its fuel efficiency.

Many of those cars as well as those of other delegations sat idling their engines outside the G20 summit venue as the leaders deliberated inside.

Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, noted that Johnson’s government had last week cut taxes on domestic flights, attracting scorn from campaigners on the eve of COP26.

“Boris Johnson is right to warn that the world is ‘one minute to midnight’ when it comes to climate change,” he told AFP.

“Which is why it would have been nice to see him model some low-carbon behaviour by getting the train to Glasgow rather than flying by jet to and from London.

“Maybe if the UK government used taxes on domestic flights to improve its rail infrastructure, low-carbon forms of transportation would be easier, cheaper and more widely used.”

World leaders must act to “save humanity”, UN chief Antonio Guterres said Monday as they met for the historic COP26 climate summit that observers said got underway with more talk than action.

More than 120 heads of state and government are gathering in Glasgow for a two-day summit at the start of the UN’s COP26 conference, which organisers say is crucial for charting humanity’s path away from catastrophic global warming. 

“It’s one minute to midnight… and we need to act now,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said to start proceedings on an at-times chaotic opening day. 

However, Monday’s most hotly anticipated address, from India’s Narendra Modi, tempered the hype somewhat: the third largest emitter will only achieve net-zero by 2070.

COP26 is being billed as vital for the continued viability of the Paris Agreement, which countries signed in 2015 by promising to limit global temperature rises to “well below” two degrees Celsius, and to work for a safer 1.5C cap.

With a little over 1C of warming since the Industrial Revolution, Earth is being battered by ever more extreme heatwaves, flooding and tropical storms supercharged by rising seas.

US President Joe Biden, addressing delegates, said that the current age of climate disaster was “an inflection point in world history”.

Pressure is on governments to redouble their emissions-cutting commitments to bring them in line with the Paris goals, and to stump up long-promised cash to help developing nations green their grids and protect themselves against future disasters.

“It’s time to say: enough,” Guterres said. 

“Enough of brutalising biodiversity. Enough of killing ourselves with carbon. Enough of burning and drilling and mining our way deeper. We are digging our own graves.”

– ‘We are watching’ –

Thousands of delegates queued around the block to get into the summit on Monday, negotiating airport-style security in the locked-down city centre.

On nearby streets, protesters began lively demonstrations to keep up the pressure. 

Swedish activist Greta Thunberg was among dozens of protesters who gathered in a park across the river from the conference centre carrying banners with slogans like “We are watching”.

They then marched across to directly opposite the venue chanting “We are unstoppable, another world is possible!”

Johnson warned of the “uncontainable” public anger if the conference fell flat. 

If the leaders “fluff our lines or miss our cue”, generations as-yet unborn “will not forgive us”, the prime minister said.

Biden apologised for his predecessor Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from the Paris deal, noting that one of his first actions on taking office this January had been to re-enter the accord.

Observers however were unimpressed with Monday’s announcements. 

“More is needed to turn words into action,” said Thomas Damassa, Oxfam America’s associate director for Climate Change.

“The US must work with other countries to secure a strong outcome that ratchets up emission reductions by major economies.”

– No Xi, Putin –

The G20 including China, India and Western nations committed on Sunday to the Paris goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C. 

They also agreed to end funding for new coal plants abroad without carbon capturing technology by the end of 2021.

But the precise pathway to 1.5C was left largely undefined and campaigners expressed disappointment with the group, which collectively emits nearly 80 percent of global carbon emissions.

Preparations for the high-level summit had been dampened by a number of high-profile no-shows.

Both Chinese President Xi Jinping — who has not left his country during the Covid-19 pandemic — and Russia’s Vladimir Putin will not be in Glasgow. 

And on Monday, Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdogan cancelled his appearance for unspecified reasons.

France’s Emmanuel Macron called on the “largest emitters” to redouble their pollution cutting plans during COP26. 

“The key over the next 15 days at this COP, is that the largest emitters, whose national strategies do not align with our objective of 1.5C of warming, raise their ambition,” he said.

– Net-zero 2070 –

Most nations have already submitted their renewed emissions cutting plans — known as “nationally determined contributions”, or NDCs — in advance of COP26.

But even these current commitments — if followed — would still lead to a “catastrophic” warming of 2.7 Celsius, says the UN.

China, by far the world’s biggest carbon polluter, has just submitted to the UN its revised climate plan, which repeats a long-standing goal of peaking emissions by 2030. 

US-China tensions were simmering Monday after Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan labelled Beijing among the “significant outliers”. 

China “will not be represented at leader level at COP26 and… has an obligation to step up to greater ambition as we go forward”, Sullivan added.

India meanwhile has yet to submit a revised NDC, a requirement under the Paris deal.

Modi said that his country would achieve net-zero emissions by 2070, and that 50 percent of its energy would come from renewable sources by 2030.

Another pressing issue is the failure of rich countries to deliver $100 billion annually to help climate-vulnerable nations adapt to climate change.

The goal — meant to be delivered last year — has been postponed to 2023, exacerbating tensions between richer nations, responsible for global warming, and those poorer countries who are the victims of its effects.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson will fly back to London from Glasgow rather than taking the train, Downing Street said Monday hours after he chided world leaders for not doing more on climate change.

Aviation — especially the private kind — is a bete noir of the environmental lobby as it emits vastly more carbon per passenger than other forms of transport. 

Hundreds of campaigners attending the COP26 conference in Scotland’s biggest city have come up from London by train, although the main line to Glasgow was hit by lengthy storm-related delays Sunday.

Johnson flew in to COP26 late Sunday from Rome, where he was attending a weekend G20 summit, aboard a chartered Airbus plane painted in a patriotic UK livery.

He will use the same jet to return to London on Tuesday, his office said, after opening a two-day COP26 summit by warning that future generations “will not forgive us” if leaders fail to act.

“It’s important that the prime minister is able to move around the country and we face significant time constraints,” Johnson’s spokesman told reporters in Glasgow.

London is 60-90 minutes from Glasgow by plane on average, while the train journey can take more than five hours.

“The fuel we are using is sustainable and the emissions are offset as well,” the spokesman stressed.

He added that under Johnson’s leadership, Britain was “leading the way on efforts to get to net zero”.

Other leaders have echoed Johnson’s demands for climate change action but also face criticism for their own transportation choices.

US President Joe Biden’s convoy in Rome numbered more than 80 vehicles, led by his bomb-proof car “The Beast”, which is not known for its fuel efficiency.

Many of those cars as well as those of other delegations sat idling their engines outside the G20 summit venue as the leaders deliberated inside.

Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, noted that Johnson’s government had last week cut taxes on domestic flights, attracting scorn from campaigners on the eve of COP26.

“Boris Johnson is right to warn that the world is ‘one minute to midnight’ when it comes to climate change,” he told AFP.

“Which is why it would have been nice to see him model some low-carbon behaviour by getting the train to Glasgow rather than flying by jet to and from London.

“Maybe if the UK government used taxes on domestic flights to improve its rail infrastructure, low-carbon forms of transportation would be easier, cheaper and more widely used.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby apologised on Monday for suggesting that the impact of climate change would be worse than Nazi genocide.

Welby, the most senior cleric in the Church of England and leader of the worldwide Anglican communion, made the comments in an interview with the BBC at the COP26 summit in Glasgow.

He said that national leaders will be “cursed” if they do not achieve the goal of the United Nations summit of urgently finding concrete ways to stabilise global heating.

Politicians who fail at this task will be spoken of by future generations “in far stronger terms than we speak today of the politicians of the (19)30s, of the politicians who ignored what was happening in Nazi Germany,” he said.

He added that this was because climate change “will kill people all around the world for generations” and “allow a genocide on an infinitely greater scale” that will “come back to us or to our children and grandchildren”.

Welby, a former oil executive before becoming a man of the cloth, later apologised for offending Jewish people with the Holocaust analogy.

“I unequivocally apologise for the words I used when trying to emphasise the gravity of the situation facing us at COP26,” he tweeted.

“It’s never right to make comparisons with the atrocities brought by the Nazis, and I’m sorry for the offence caused to Jews by these words,” he added.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson said of the comments: “It is up to individuals how they choose to frame the problem.”

Stephen Pollard, editor of The Jewish Chronicle newspaper, reacted furiously to Welby’s comments, tweeting that they were “so sickening that I simply cannot comprehend how Welby can remain as a priest, let alone Archbishop”.

He later relented, saying the Archbishop made “a proper apology, not mealy mouthed”.

Rich countries’ failure to cough up a promised $100 billion a year to help vulnerable nations cope with climate change has deadly consequences, the prime minister of Barbados said Monday at the COP26 summit in Glasgow.

Impacts from climate-enhanced droughts, heatwaves, floods and wildfires are “measured in lives and livelihoods in our communities and that, my friends, is immoral and unjust,” Mia Mottley told more than 120 world leaders kicking off the critical 13-day negotiations.

Dozens of small island states and major low-lying cities worldwide are also exposed to the existential threat of superstorms, made more destructive by rising seas.

Wealthy nations first made the $100 billion pledge in 2009, but fell $20 billion short ahead of their 2020 deadline. 

Last week, in a revised schedule, they laid out a plan for hitting the target only in 2023.

Such delays, a paucity of funds devoted to adaptation needs, and the large share in the form of loans rather than grants have deepened an old rift between developing and rich nations struggling to find common ground.  

“Are we really going to leave Scotland without the results and ambitions needed to save lives and our planet?,” Mottley asked, her voice laced with anger. 

“How many more pictures of people must we see on these screens without being able to move? Are we so blinded and hardened that we can no longer appreciate the cries of humanity?”

Capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius — the aspirational goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement — is an absolute necessity, she continued.

“For those who have eyes to see, for those who have ears to listen, and those who have a heart to feel, 1.5C is what we need to survive,” she said.

“2C is a death sentence for the people of Antigua and Barbuda, for the people of the Maldives, of Dominica and Fiji, of Kenya and Mozambique, and yes, for the people of Barbados.”

Even if newly revised carbon-cutting pledges submitted in the run-up to COP26 are fulfilled, it would still lead to “catastrophic” warming of 2.7C, according to a UN report last week.

“We’ve come here to say: ‘Try harder’,” she added. “Our people, the world, the planet need our action now — not next year, not in the next decade.”

Rich countries’ failure to cough up a promised $100 billion a year to help vulnerable nations cope with climate change has deadly consequences, the prime minister of Barbados said Monday at the COP26 summit in Glasgow.

Impacts from climate-enhanced droughts, heatwaves, floods and wildfires are “measured in lives and livelihoods in our communities and that, my friends, is immoral and unjust,” Mia Mottley told more than 120 world leaders kicking off the critical 13-day negotiations.

Dozens of small island states and major low-lying cities worldwide are also exposed to the existential threat of superstorms, made more destructive by rising seas.

Wealthy nations first made the $100 billion pledge in 2009, but fell $20 billion short ahead of their 2020 deadline. 

Last week, in a revised schedule, they laid out a plan for hitting the target only in 2023.

Such delays, a paucity of funds devoted to adaptation needs, and the large share in the form of loans rather than grants have deepened an old rift between developing and rich nations struggling to find common ground.  

“Are we really going to leave Scotland without the results and ambitions needed to save lives and our planet?,” Mottley asked, her voice laced with anger. 

“How many more pictures of people must we see on these screens without being able to move? Are we so blinded and hardened that we can no longer appreciate the cries of humanity?”

Capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius — the aspirational goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement — is an absolute necessity, she continued.

“For those who have eyes to see, for those who have ears to listen, and those who have a heart to feel, 1.5C is what we need to survive,” she said.

“2C is a death sentence for the people of Antigua and Barbuda, for the people of the Maldives, of Dominica and Fiji, of Kenya and Mozambique, and yes, for the people of Barbados.”

Even if newly revised carbon-cutting pledges submitted in the run-up to COP26 are fulfilled, it would still lead to “catastrophic” warming of 2.7C, according to a UN report last week.

“We’ve come here to say: ‘Try harder’,” she added. “Our people, the world, the planet need our action now — not next year, not in the next decade.”

US President Joe Biden on Monday apologized to world leaders for his predecessor Donald Trump’s withdrawal from a global climate accord and said fighting the crisis should be seen as an economic opportunity.

In a reference to Trump, who withdrew from the Paris climate deal on world action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Biden told the COP26 summit in Glasgow that he was sorry.

“I guess I shouldn’t apologize but I do apologize for the fact that the United States in the last administration pulled out of the Paris Accords and put us sort of behind the eight ball a little bit,” he said, noting that one of his first actions on taking office this January was to re-enter the accord.

Trump had argued that the Paris accord killed jobs.

But in his main speech to the UN COP26 summit in Glasgow, Biden said that fighting climate change will boost, not hurt economies.

“Within the growing catastrophe I believe there’s an incredible opportunity — not just for the United States, but for all of us,” he said in his speech to the summit.

He promised US leadership and “action, not words.”

“The United States is not only back at the table but hopefully leading by the power of example. I know that hasn’t been the case and that’s why my administration is working overtime,” he said.

Biden pushed back against criticism that reducing greenhouse gases and reliance on fossil fuels will hurt jobs, arguing that “it’s about jobs”.

Electrifying transport, building solar panels and wind turbine networks “create good, paying union jobs for American workers”.

Continuing down the current path is already causing economic damage, Biden said.

“We’re standing at an inflection point in world history,” Biden said, citing the proliferation of wildfires, droughts and other climate-related disasters.

“Climate change is already ravaging the world,” he said. It’s not hypothetical. It’s destroying people’s lives and livelihoods.

“We have the ability to invest in ourselves and build an equitable, clean-energy future and in the process create millions of good paying jobs and opportunities around the world.

“We meet with the eyes of history upon us,” Biden told the summit in Glasgow, Scotland. “Every day we delay, the cost of inaction increases, so let this be the moment when we answer history’s call, here in Glasgow.

“God bless you all and may God save the planet,” he said in closing.

World leaders must act to “save humanity”, UN chief Antonio Guterres said Monday as they met for the historic COP26 climate summit with code-red warnings from scientists ringing in their ears.

More than 120 heads of state and government are gathering in Glasgow for a two-day summit at the start of the UN’s COP26 conference, which organisers say is crucial for charting humanity’s path away from catastrophic global warming. 

“It’s one minute to midnight… and we need to act now,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said to start proceedings on an at-times chaotic opening day. 

COP26 is being billed as vital for the continued viability of the Paris Agreement, which countries signed in 2015 by promising to limit global temperature rises to “well below” two degrees Celsius, and to work for a safer 1.5C cap.

With a little over 1C of warming since the Industrial Revolution, Earth is being battered by ever more extreme heatwaves, flooding and tropical storms supercharged by rising seas.

US President Joe Biden, addressing delegates, said that the current age of climate disaster was “an inflection point in world history”.

Pressure is on governments to redouble their emissions-cutting commitments to bring them in line with the Paris goals, and to stump up long-promised cash to help developing nations green their grids and protect themselves against future disasters.

“It’s time to say: enough,” Guterres said. 

“Enough of brutalizing biodiversity. Enough of killing ourselves with carbon. Enough of treating nature like a toilet. Enough of burning and drilling and mining our way deeper. We are digging our own graves.”

– ‘We are watching’ –

Thousands of delegates queued around the block to get into the summit on Monday, negotiating airport-style security in the locked-down city centre.

On nearby streets, protesters began lively demonstrations to keep up the pressure. 

Swedish activist Greta Thunberg was among dozens of protesters who gathered in a park across the river from the conference centre carrying banners with slogans like “we are watching”. 

They then marched across to directly opposite the venue chanting “we are unstoppable, another world is possible!”

Johnson spoke of the “uncontainable” public anger if the conference falls flat. 

If the leaders “fluff our lines or miss our cue”, generations as-yet unborn “will not forgive us”, the prime minister said.

“They will know that Glasgow was the historic turning point when history failed to turn.”

Biden said that the response to the climate crisis should be seen as an opportunity for the world’s economies. 

“Within the growing catastrophe I believe there’s an incredible opportunity — not just for the United States, but for all of us,” he told delegates.

– No Xi, Putin –

The G20 including China, India and Western nations committed on Sunday to the Paris goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C. 

They also agreed to end funding for new coal plants abroad without carbon capturing technology by the end of 2021.

But the precise pathway to 1.5C was left largely undefined and campaigners expressed disappointment with the group, which collectively emits nearly 80 percent of global carbon emissions.

Preparations for the high-level summit had been dampened by a number of high-profile no shows.

Both Chinese President Xi Jinping — who has not left his country during the Covid-19 pandemic — and Russia’s Vladimir Putin will not be in Glasgow. 

And Monday saw Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdogan cancel his appearance, for unspecified reasons.

France’s Emmanuel Macron called on the “largest emitters” to redouble their pollution cutting plans during COP26. 

“The key over the next 15 days at this COP, is that the largest emitters, whose national strategies do not align with our objective of 1.5C of warming, raise their ambition,” he said.

Observers say the Glasgow gathering, which runs until November 12, will be tough going.

Most nations have already submitted their renewed emissions cutting plans — known as “nationally determined contributions”, or NDCs — in advance of COP26.

But even these current commitments — if followed — would still lead to a “catastrophic” warming of 2.7 Celsius, according to the UN.

– Eyes on India –

China, by far the world’s biggest carbon polluter, has just submitted to the UN its revised climate plan, which repeats a long-standing goal of peaking emissions by 2030. 

US-China tensions were simmering Monday after Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan labelled Beijing among the “significant outliers”. 

He added China “will not be represented at leader level at COP26 and… has an obligation to step up to greater ambition as we go forward.”

India meanwhile has yet to submit a revised NDC, a requirement under the Paris deal.

Modi’s address is keenly anticipated, though it was not clear if it would contain new climate pledges.

Another pressing issue is the failure of rich countries to deliver $100 billion annually to help climate vulnerable nations adapt to climate change.

The goal — meant to be delivered last year — has been postponed to 2023, exacerbating tensions between richer nations, responsible for global warming, and those poorer countries who are the victims of its effects.