AFP UK

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.”

– ‘Blah, blah’ –

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. 

Activists from Oxfam communicated their displeasure through music, with a Scottish pipe band, the “COP26 Hot Air Band”, wearing masks that caricatured world leaders.

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

Echoing 18-year-old climate campaigner Greta Thunberg — who is in Glasgow with thousands of other protesters — he urged the summit against indulging in “blah blah blah”.

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.

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.

The addresses from well over 100 world leaders will be closely scrutinised in particular by young activists who travelled to Scotland by train.

“As citizens across the planet, we urge you to face up to the climate emergency,” they said in an open letter signed by Thunberg among others, which had gathered over a million signatures.

“Not next year. Not next month. Now.”

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.”

– ‘Blah, blah’ –

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. 

Activists from Oxfam communicated their displeasure through music, with a Scottish pipe band, the “COP26 Hot Air Band”, wearing masks that caricatured world leaders.

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

Echoing 18-year-old climate campaigner Greta Thunberg — who is in Glasgow with thousands of other protesters — he urged the summit against indulging in “blah blah blah”.

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.

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.

The addresses from well over 100 world leaders will be closely scrutinised in particular by young activists who travelled to Scotland by train.

“As citizens across the planet, we urge you to face up to the climate emergency,” they said in an open letter signed by Thunberg among others, which had gathered over a million signatures.

“Not next year. Not next month. Now.”

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. 

US President Joe Biden, India’s Narendra Modi and Germany’s Angela Merkel were all set to deliver speeches expected to reiterate the need for urgency.

“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.

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.”

– ‘Blah, blah’ –

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 on delegates. 

Activists from Oxfam communicated their displeasure through music, with a Scottish pipe band, the “COP26 Hot Air Band”, wearing masks that caricatured world leaders.

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

Echoing 18-year-old climate campaigner Greta Thunberg — who is in Glasgow with thousands of other protesters — he urged the summit against indulging in “blah blah blah”.

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. 

“They will judge us with bitterness and with a resentment that eclipses any of the climate activists of today — and they will be right,” he said.

– 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.

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 event 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.

– $100-bn question –

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.

The addresses from well over 100 world leaders will be closely scrutinised in particular by young activists who travelled to Scotland by train.

“As citizens across the planet, we urge you to face up to the climate emergency,” they said in an open letter signed by Thunberg among others, which had gathered nearly a million signatures.

“Not next year. Not next month. Now.”

The 3.5 trillion tonnes of Greenland’s ice sheet that has melted over the past decade has raised global sea levels by one centimetre and is heightening worldwide flood risks, new research showed on Monday.

The ice sheet atop the world’s largest island contains enough frozen water to lift oceans some six metres (20 feet) globally, and extreme melting events there have been increasing in frequency for at least 40 years.

Although it is one of the most studied places on Earth by climatologists, Monday’s research is the first to use satellite data to detect Greenland ice sheet runoff. 

Writing in the journal Nature Communications, researchers said that Greenland’s meltwater runoff had risen by 21 percent over the past four decades. 

More strikingly, the data provided by the European Space Agency showed that the ice sheet had lost 3.5 trillion tonnes of ice since 2011, producing enough water to raise oceans globally and put coastal communities at higher risk of flood events.

One-third of the ice lost in the past decade came in just two hot summers — 2012 and 2019 — the research showed. 

The images showed significant annual variation in ice melt and, combined with temperature data, showed that heatwaves were increasingly a major cause of ice loss — above and beyond global temperature rises.

In 2012, for example, when changes in atmospheric patterns caused unusually warm air to hover over the ice sheet for weeks, 527 billion tonnes of ice was lost. 

“As we’ve seen with other parts of the world, Greenland is also vulnerable to an increase in extreme weather events,” said Thomas Slater, from the University of Leeds Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling and lead author. 

“As our climate warms, it’s reasonable to expect that the instances of extreme melting in Greenland will happen more often.”

Predicting how much Greenland’s melt will contribute to rising sea levels is notoriously tricky for scientists who also need to factor in the potential rise caused by other land-based glacier melt. 

And, as oceans warm, water expands, and also contributes to higher seas.

Monday’s authors said that the satellite data had allowed them to quickly and accurately estimate how much ice Greenland had lost in a given year, and convert that into sea-level rise equivalent.

“Model estimates suggest that the Greenland ice sheet will contribute between 3-23 cm to global sea-level rise by 2100,” said co-author Amber Leeson, senior lecturer in Environmental Data Science at Britain’s Lancaster University.

“These new spaceborne estimates of runoff will help us to understand complex ice melt processes better… and just enable us to refine our estimates of future sea-level rise.”

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson welcomed more than 120 world leaders to historic climate talks in Glasgow Monday with the stark warning: “It’s one minute to midnight, and we need to act now.”

Global heads of state and government were convening for a two-day summit at the start of the UN’s COP26 climate conference, with US President Joe Biden set to jet in from separate G20 talks in Rome.

The G20 members including China, India and Western nations collectively emit nearly 80 percent of global carbon emissions, but campaigners’ hopes for more decisive action heading in to COP26 were dashed.

The G20 economies committed on Sunday to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels — the most ambitious target of the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement. 

They also agreed to end funding for new “unabated” coal plants abroad — those whose emissions have not gone through any filtering process — by the end of 2021.

But the precise pathway to 1.5C was left largely undefined — and the COP26 negotiators were left with yawning blanks to fill in over the next fortnight.

“While I welcome the G20’s recommitment to global solutions, I leave Rome with my hopes unfulfilled — but at least they are not buried,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Twitter.

Richer countries have failed to meet a $100 billion annual target for climate finance by 2020. Poorer nations like India want more cash to move past their reliance on coal and other fossil fuels.

Johnson kicks off the Glasgow summit from 1200 GMT, having admitted to a “road to Damascus” conversion to the threat of climate change.

“It’s one minute to midnight and we need to act now,” Johnson was due to tell them in his keynote speech, according to Downing Street.

“If we don’t get serious about climate change today, it will be too late for our children to do so tomorrow.”

Preparations were dampened by the news that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had cancelled his planned attendance in Glasgow. 

The Anadolu state news agency and other media did not explain the decision.

– ‘Need to do better’ –

The Glasgow gathering, which runs until November 12, comes as an accelerating onslaught of extreme weather events across the world underscores the devastating impacts of climate change from 150 years of burning fossil fuels.

The current commitments of the Paris signatories — if they were followed — would still lead to a “catastrophic” warming of 2.7 Celsius, according to the UN.

COP26 marks the “last, best hope to keep 1.5C in reach”, summit president Alok Sharma said on Sunday.

“If we act now and we act together, we can protect our precious planet,” he said.

COP26 was delayed a year by the pandemic, and Monday got off to chaotic scenes.

Thousands of delegates queued around the block negotiating airport-style security ahead of several anticipated protests in the locked-down city centre.

Eilidh Robb, from the UK’s Youth Climate Coalition, told AFP that after 25 years of the UN-backed process on climate action, “anything short of a commitment to ensure that national emissions reductions keep us below 1.5C will be a failure” in Glasgow.

– 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. 

President Xi Jinping is absent from Glasgow but is expected to submit a statement for Monday’s summit. 

India meanwhile has yet to submit a revised “nationally determined contribution”, a requirement under the Paris deal.

But if Prime Minister Narendra Modi announces new efforts to curb emissions in his own speech Monday, it could put more pressure on China and others, said Alden Meyer, a senior associate at climate and energy think tank E3G.

“If he feels confident enough that there’s going to be financing and technology assistance from Europe, the US, Japan and others, he might signal that India is willing to update its NDC,” Meyer said.

Another pressing issue is the failure of rich countries to deliver on their $100 billion pledge, which was first made in 2009.

The goal has been postponed to 2023, exacerbating the crisis of confidence between the North, responsible for global warming, and the South, which is the victim of its effects.

“Rich nations can no longer turn their backs on poor people who already suffer losses and damages from devastating floods, cyclones and rising seas,” Harjeet Singh, senior advisor at Climate Action Network International, told AFP.

“A new financing stream must be committed at COP26 to help climate affected people recover from such impacts.”

The addresses from well over 100 world leaders will be closely scrutinised in particular by a group of young activists who travelled to Scotland by train.

“As citizens across the planet, we urge you to face up to the climate emergency,” they said in an open letter by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg among others, which had gathered nearly a million signatures.

“Not next year. Not next month. Now.”

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson welcomed more than 120 world leaders to historic climate talks in Glasgow Monday with the stark warning: “It’s one minute to midnight, and we need to act now.”

Global heads of state and government were convening for a two-day summit at the start of the UN’s COP26 climate conference, with US President Joe Biden set to jet in from separate G20 talks in Rome.

The G20 members including China, India and Western nations collectively emit nearly 80 percent of global carbon emissions, but campaigners’ hopes for more decisive action heading in to COP26 were dashed.

The G20 economies committed on Sunday to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels — the most ambitious target of the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement. 

They also agreed to end funding for new “unabated” coal plants abroad — those whose emissions have not gone through any filtering process — by the end of 2021.

But how to get to 1.5 was left largely undefined — and the COP26 negotiators were left with yawning blanks to fill in over the next fortnight.

“While I welcome the G20’s recommitment to global solutions, I leave Rome with my hopes unfulfilled — but at least they are not buried,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Twitter.

Richer countries have failed to meet a $100 billion annual target for climate finance by 2020. Poorer nations like India want more cash to move past their reliance on coal and other fossil fuels.

Johnson kicks off the Glasgow summit from 1200 GMT, having admitted to a “road to Damascus” conversion to the threat of climate change.

“It’s one minute to midnight and we need to act now,” Johnson was due to tell them in his keynote speech, according to Downing Street.

“If we don’t get serious about climate change today, it will be too late for our children to do so tomorrow.”

– ‘Need to do better’ –

The Glasgow gathering, which runs until November 12, comes as an accelerating onslaught of extreme weather events across the world underscores the devastating impacts of climate change from 150 years of burning fossil fuels.

The current commitments of the Paris signatories — if they were followed — would still lead to a “catastrophic” warming of 2.7 Celsius, according to the UN.

COP26 marks the “last, best hope to keep 1.5C in reach”, summit president Alok Sharma said on Sunday.

“If we act now and we act together, we can protect our precious planet,” he said.

Climate advocacy groups expressed disappointment at the statement released at the end of the G20 summit.

“These so-called leaders need to do better. They have another shot at this: starting (Monday),” said Namrata Chowdhary from the NGO 350.org.

– 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. 

But President Xi Jinping is absent from Glasgow, and India is now at the centre of expectations.

India has yet to submit a revised “nationally determined contribution”.

But if Prime Minister Narendra Modi announces new efforts to curb emissions in his own speech Monday, it could put more pressure on China and others, said Alden Meyer, a senior associate at climate and energy think tank E3G.

“If he feels confident enough that there’s going to be financing and technology assistance from Europe, the US, Japan and others, he might signal that India is willing to update its NDC,” Meyer said.

Another pressing issue is the failure of rich countries to deliver on their $100 billion pledge, which was first made in 2009.

The goal has been postponed to 2023, exacerbating the crisis of confidence between the North, responsible for global warming, and the South, which is the victim of its effects.

– ‘Not next year. Now’ –

“Climate finance is not charity. It is a question of justice,” stressed Lia Nicholson, on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States vulnerable to climate change.

Forecasts by the UN climate experts panel (IPCC) that the threshold of a 1.5 Celsius increase could be reached 10 years earlier than expected, around 2030, are “terrifying”, she said.

“Climate finance is not charity. It is a question of justice,” stressed Lia Nicholson, on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States vulnerable to climate change.

Forecasts by the UN climate experts panel (IPCC) that the threshold of a 1.5 Celsius increase could be reached 10 years earlier than expected, around 2030, are “terrifying”, she said.

The leaders’ words will be closely scrutinised in particular by a group of young activists who travelled to Scotland by train despite obstacles due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has entailed strict health protocols at COP26.

“As citizens across the planet, we urge you to face up to the climate emergency,” they said in an open letter signed by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg among others.

“Not next year. Not next month. Now.”

The United States is back to leading the world on fighting climate change and President Joe Biden will use a UN summit in Glasgow to energize partners, US officials said.

Special climate envoy John Kerry told reporters ahead of Biden’s arrival on Monday at the COP26 summit that the aim is “to leave Glasgow having raised global ambition very significantly and to be more on track to keep a 1.5 degrees within reach”.

Biden is set on Monday to address COP26, which is tasked with trying to maintain a global bid to restrict average temperature rises to 1.5C, preventing what scientists say will be an ever more destructive climate crisis.

He will also attend the summit on Tuesday before flying home.

Kerry highlighted a “very strong” US delegation at the two-week summit, including 10 cabinet secretaries and agency heads, and more than 50 members of Congress.

“This is a message you’re going to see from the president over the next two days and from dozens of cabinet officials who will be in Glasgow over the next two weeks: the United States is back at the table, we’re back, hoping to rally the world to tackle the climate crisis,” climate adviser Gina McCarthy told reporters.

Pushing back against criticism that COP26 is getting off to a weak start, with only lukewarm action on that 1.5C goal from countries at a G20 summit in Rome at the weekend, Kerry said nations representing 65 percent of global GDP are committed to the effort.

Nine months ago, when Biden took office, “there were only two or three entities, very few, who were on track to try to hold 1.5 degrees,” he said.

The other third of countries not fully on board are “the challenge coming out of Glasgow”, he said. “Can those countries step up?”

He called agreement at the G20 in Rome on Sunday to end public financing for coal production abroad “a major breakthrough”.

– Call for more oil –

Kerry defended Biden’s recent calls for increased oil production, saying this is a temporary response to energy shortages, and does not clash with broader climate goals.

Biden has been pushing the oil industry to counter rising energy prices for ordinary Americans by ramping up production. Similar shortages and price hikes have hit Europe.

“If he were asking them to boost their production over five years, I’d quit,” Kerry said. “But he’s not. He’s asking them to boost production in this immediate moment.”

Biden’s climate pointman said that getting through the current energy crunch is important if governments are going to be able to carry public opinion in the transition to clean energy.

“If life is so miserable… and prices go up and other things happen, you’re going to lose, I think it becomes more challenging to get the job done,” he said.

“We’re all trying to facilitate the transition. And as the transition cuts in, there won’t be that need,” he said. “So I just don’t think it’s inconsistent to say you’re going to have a temporary capacity booster (to) keep the economy moving.”

Some call it “experimental”, some don’t trust the government, some even buy fake certificates — as their country sees a record coronavirus surge, Russians are proving stubbornly resistant to the country’s Sputnik V vaccine.

Russia is among the countries worst-hit by the Covid pandemic and a devastating wave this autumn has seen infections and deaths reach new records, with more than 1,000 fatalities per day.

But while the country has several locally produced vaccines including Sputnik V, only about a third of its population has been inoculated.

With global coronavirus fatalities soon set to top five million, the scepticism of Russians underlines the difficulties that remain in the global fight against Covid.

Sputnik V was announced with great fanfare last year by President Vladimir Putin as the first registered coronavirus vaccine and is freely available at clinics and vaccination centres across the country.

Meant as a showcase for Russian science that would quickly turn the page on the pandemic in the country, it has failed to win over the public, with polls showing fewer than half of people planning to get vaccinated.

For Russians like Vyacheslav, a 52-year-old businessman, the government has given them no reason to have confidence in the vaccine.

“The authorities lie to us on all sorts of subjects. Why should we believe them on vaccination?” he asked, his sports bag on his knees as he prepared for a swim at a Moscow pool.

“I have no trust,” he said, declining to give his last name.

– ‘It’s suspicious’ –

Even some of those who have contracted Covid, like Svetlana Zhetlukhina, are still refusing to get jabbed.

“It’s an experimental vaccine,” said the 54-year-old financial analyst, adding there is not yet enough “scientific data” on Sputnik V. 

“I am not a monkey.”

Like elsewhere, Russia has its share of diehard anti-vaxxers. But beyond those who oppose all vaccines, there are “a big number of Russians who distrust the people who made this vaccine and the Russian government”, said anthropologist Alexandra Arkhipova.

“They think that we cannot expect anything good from the government… and that our laboratories are incapable of producing aspirin, let alone a good vaccine,” she said.

Tamara Alexeyeva, an elegant 67-year-old retiree, said the Kremlin’s claims of Sputnik’s alleged superiority over Western vaccines have fed her scepticism.

“They want us to believe that we have the best scientists in the world, like the USSR,” she said, walking briskly towards a Metro station.

“But me, I will never accept this so-called vaccine.”

Sputnik V has been administered to millions of people and both its effectiveness and safety have been confirmed by respected medical journal The Lancet.

But it has not yet won approval from the World Health Organization or the European Medicines Agency — another fact that is feeding concern among Russians.

“It’s suspicious,” said Vyacheslav, his eyebrows furrowing.

Putin’s government has been pinning its hopes on vaccines and has shied away from the kind of severe lockdowns imposed in many countries.

– ‘Win back confidence’ –

But with current policies failing to reduce cases, authorities have imposed a nationwide non-working week from October 30 to November 7. 

Mandatory jabs have also been required for some service workers and there are increasing moves towards requiring vaccination certificates for public venues.

But sceptical Russians are finding ways around that too, with a thriving market in fake Covid passes.

Alexander, a 45-year-old entrepreneur, said he preferred to spend 5,500 rubles ($80, 70 euros) to get a false certificate instead of a free vaccine, and knows “a lot of people” who have done the same.

The Kremlin has put out increasingly desperate calls for Russians to get vaccinated, with Putin in mid-October asking them to “please, show responsibility”.

Authorities face an uphill battle. 

According to sociologist Stepan Goncharov of independent pollster Levada, surveys show the number of people opposed to being vaccinated — “between 50 and 55 percent” — has been steady for months. 

The Kremlin “needs to win back people’s confidence” if it wants to prevail in the vaccination battle, he said, by putting in place a “more coherent policy” after months of vacillating between warnings and inaction. 

With hospitalisations on the rise and Russia’s health system stretched, doctors say the best ambassadors for vaccination may be those who are treated for serious cases of Covid.

“Those who survive become our allies,” said Yevgeny Ryabov, a doctor at Moscow’s top emergency hospital, the Sklifosovsky Institute.

“When they get out of the hospital, they tell their loved ones to get vaccinated.”

More than 120 world leaders meet in Glasgow on Monday in a “last, best hope” to tackle the climate crisis and avert a looming global disaster.

“It’s one minute to midnight and we need to act now,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was due to tell them, according to extracts from his speech. 

“If we don’t get serious about climate change today, it will be too late for our children to do so tomorrow.”

Observers had hoped a weekend meeting in Rome of leaders of the G20 nations, which between them emit nearly 80 percent of global carbon emissions, would give a strong impetus to the Glasgow COP26 summit, which was postponed for a year due to the pandemic.

The G20 major economies committed on Sunday to the key goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels — the most ambitious target of the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement. 

They also agreed to end funding for new unabated coal plants abroad — those whose emissions have not gone through any filtering process — by the end of 2021.

But this did not convince NGOs, the British prime minister or the United Nations.

“While I welcome the G20’s recommitment to global solutions, I leave Rome with my hopes unfulfilled — but at least they are not buried,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Twitter.

– ‘Going to be very difficult’ –

“We’ve inched forward (at the G20). We’ve put ourselves in a reasonable position for COP in Glasgow but it’s going to be very difficult in the next few days,” Johnson said Sunday, before warning: “If Glasgow fails, then the whole thing fails.”

The Glasgow gathering, which runs until November 12, comes as an accelerating onslaught of extreme weather events across the world underscores the devastating impacts of climate change from 150 years of burning fossil fuels.

The current commitments of the signatories of the Paris agreement — if they were followed — would still lead to a “catastrophic” warming of 2.7 Celsius, according to the UN.

COP26 marks the “last, best hope to keep 1.5C in reach”, summit president Alok Sharma said as he opened the meeting on Sunday.

“If we act now and we act together, we can protect our precious planet,” he said.

Climate advocacy groups expressed disappointment at the statement released at the end of the G20 summit.

“These so-called leaders need to do better. They have another shot at this: starting tomorrow,” said Namrata Chowdhary from the NGO 350.org.

– Eyes on India –

While 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, India is now at the centre of expectations.

India has yet to submit a revised “nationally determined contribution” but if Prime Minister Narendra Modi announces new efforts to curb emissions in his speech Monday, it could put more pressure on China and others, said Alden Meyer, a senior associate at climate and energy think tank E3G.

“If he feels confident enough that there’s going to be financing and technology assistance from Europe, the US, Japan and others, he might signal that India is willing to update its NDC,” Meyer said.

Another pressing issue is the failure of rich countries to cough up $100 billion a year starting in 2020 to help developing nations lower emissions and adapt — a pledge first made in 2009.

This goal has been postponed to 2023, exacerbating the crisis of confidence between the North, responsible for global warming, and the South, which is the victim of its effects.

“Climate finance is not charity. It is a question of justice,” stressed Lia Nicholson, on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States vulnerable to climate change, also denouncing the refusal of large economies to abandon coal.

Forecasts by the UN climate experts panel (IPCC) that the threshold of a 1.5 Celsius increase could be reached 10 years earlier than expected, around 2030, are “terrifying” she said, particularly for those on the front line of the climate crisis who are already suffering the consequences in a world that has heated up by about 1.1 degrees Celsius.

Despite everything, it seems that some are not afraid, or worse, that they are indifferent, she said.

– ‘Not next year. Now’ –

Her words are likely to find an echo in the speeches from African and Pacific leaders on Monday and Tuesday.

While the Chinese and Russian presidents are not expected in person, dozens of other heads of state and government from US President Joe Biden to EU leaders and Australia’s Scott Morrison are making the trip to Glasgow.

Their words and actions will be closely scrutinised, in particular by the young activists who travelled to Scotland despite the obstacles due to the pandemic.

“As citizens across the planet, we urge you to face up to the climate emergency,” they said in an open letter from several of them, including Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who arrived Sunday by train.

“Not next year. Not next month. Now.”

Across 25 UN climate conferences since 1995, only twice have more than 110 world leaders joined the fray to confront the spectre of global warming. As they do so again Monday in Glasgow, an unspoken question looms: Copenhagen or Paris?    

Will COP26, in other words, more closely resemble the Danish diplomatic debacle of 2009, or the triumph that six years later led to the first climate treaty in which all nations vowed to shrink their carbon footprint and collectively cap Earth’s rising temperature?

Either way, few would doubt that the hope of keeping the planet livable for future generations rests squarely in their hands.

Something else is certain, according to a mountain of scientific evidence: the world has dithered for so long that half-measures will not do.

Only transformative action — slashing global emissions in half by 2030, and to net-zero by mid-century — will stave off impacts far more cataclysmic that the deadly heatwaves, floods, droughts and wildfires already ravaging communities across the globe.

“It’s one minute to midnight and we need to act now,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was expected to say early Monday. 

“If we don’t get serious about climate change today, it will be too late for our children to do so tomorrow.”

In a stark reminder of what is at stake, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said Sunday the years 2015 to 2021 were the seven hottest on record, if trends for 2021 hold firm.

Adding to the pressure are gathering global protests, led in part by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who was mobbed on Saturday by a scrum of media photographers as she arrived by train.

– Hopes unfulfilled –

And yet, the signals on what to expect from COP26 remain decidedly mixed, starting with who’s coming to the two-day summit and who’s not.

President Xi Jinping of China, the world’s largest emitter, has not left his country during the pandemic and there is no indication he will attend. 

Vladimir Putin of Russia, another major polluter, will also be a no-show.

US President Joe Biden, France’s Emmanuel Macron, India’s Narendra Modi and Australia’s Scott Morrison will all be present.

It was hoped that a G20 summit of major economies ending Sunday in Rome would boost momentum at the 13-day talks. 

But on key issues — notably deepening commitment to slash carbon pollution and mobilise climate finance for poor nations — the two-day meet failed to deliver.

“The G20 should have provided the lightning bolt that the COP26 climate talks so desperately need, but they responded with vague promises and platitudes,” said Oxfam senior advisory Jorn Kalinksi, reflecting widespread disappointment.

G20 nations account for 80 percent of global GDP and nearly the same proportion of greenhouse gas emissions. 

Even UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres was not impressed: “While I welcome the G20’s recommitment to global solutions, I leave Rome with my hopes unfulfilled,” he tweeted on Sunday. 

– Confidence undermined –

COP26 President and British minister Alok Sharma said that G20 nations — including China, the US, India, the EU and Russia — “can make or indeed break the hope of keeping 1.5 degrees Celsius within reach.”

The cornerstone goal of the Paris Agreement is limiting global warming at “well below 2C” compared to preindustrial levels.

But as devastating impacts and new science have accumulated, the treaty’s aspirational cap of 1.5C has become the de facto target. 

An August bombshell report from the UN’s climate science body warned that Earth’s average temperature will hit that threshold around 2030 — a decade earlier than projected only three years ago.

In a joint communique, G20 nations endorsed the collective goal of limiting warming to 1.5C, but a tally of newly revised carbon cutting pledges would still lead to “catastrophic” warming of 2.7C, according to a UN report last week.

Only India has yet to submit a revised “nationally determined contribution,” and hopeful rumours suggest Modi may announce new efforts on Monday to curb carbon emissions.

“If he feels confident enough that there’s going to be financing and technology assistance from Europe, the US, Japan and others, he might signal that India is willing to update its NDC,” said Alden Meyer, a senior associate at climate and energy think tank E3G.

But the failure of rich countries to cough up $100 billion a year starting in 2020 to help developing nations lower emissions and adapt — a pledge first made in 2009 — had undermined the confidence of the Global South and will complicate the already fraught talks, expert say.