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Can the Middle East wean itself off oil? Plus: the return of Abba

This greenwashing tactic has failed – to pursue it now would be to blow a huge hole in the Paris agreement

Living Language Land includes Namibian bushman’s word for ‘magical journey’ and one from Philippines to denote ‘a forest within a forest’Western leaders at the Cop26 climate summit have been urged to embrace a far more holistic view of humanity’s place in the natural world by an art project celebrating indigenous minority languages.The Living Language Land project has identified 25 words from minority languages and dialects around the world – including Native American Lakota, Murui, a native language of Colombian and Peru, and Scots Gaelic – that highlight each culture’s ties to their land. Continue reading...

Everyone knows that the people inside that building are not going to be the ones who solve the climate crisis

The handwaving and complexity obscure a simple truth: nation states must stop funding dirty industriesIn some respects, preventing climate breakdown is highly complicated. But in another, it’s really simple: we need to leave fossil fuels in the ground. All the bluster and grandstanding, the extravagant promises and detailed mechanisms discussed in Glasgow this week amount to nothing if this simple and obvious thing doesn’t happen.A recent study in the scientific journal Nature suggests that to stand a 50% chance of avoiding more than 1.5C of global heating, we need to retire 89% of proven coal reserves, 58% of oil reserves and 59% of fossil methane (“natural gas”) reserves. If we want better odds than 50-50, we’ll need to leave almost all of them untouched.George Monbiot is a Guardian columnistCop26 and a greener future, with George Monbiot. Join a Guardian Live online event on climate justice on Thursday 4 November at 8pm. Tickets at gu.com/guardianlive Continue reading...

Unclear if ‘Freya’ is conducting protest lie-in or just waylaid, though Dutch navy note her choice of ‘Walrus-class submarine’The disruption from the climate emergency being experienced by marine wildlife reached a new high in the first week of Cop26, when a female walrus was discovered sleeping on a submarine in a naval base in North Holland.Walruses normally live in the polar regions – several hundred miles north. This particular animal is one of at least two of the species that have been seen far from their Arctic habitat. Another wandering walrus, seen off the Scilly Islands, France, Spain and West Cork, Ireland, has since been sighted back in Icelandic waters. Continue reading...

Midnight visit by Marsican bear follows siting in neighbouring village fountainAn Italian woman who investigated what she thought was a burglar on her balcony, has described a petrifying encounter with a rare brown bear.The Marsican bear had climbed on to her bedroom balcony in Pescosolido, a village in the Lazio province of Frosinone, just days after a bear was spotted bathing in the fountain of a neighbouring village. Continue reading...

Analysis identifies 56 new chemicals in water supplies – including some linked to critical diseasesWater utilities and regulators in the US have identified 56 new contaminants in drinking water over the past two years, a list that includes dangerous substances linked to a range of health problems such as cancer, reproductive disruption, liver disease and much more.The revelation is part of an analysis of the nation’s water utilities’ contamination records by the Environmental Working Group, a clean water advocate that has now updated its database for the first time since 2019. Continue reading...

Pledge by over 450 financial institutions in 45 countries billed as one of the successes of Cop26 summitHundreds of the world’s biggest banks and pension funds with assets worth $130tn have committed themselves to a key goal in limiting greenhouse gas emissions, the UK government will announce on Wednesday.The pledge by more than 450 financial institutions in 45 countries is intended to be one of the top achievements by the UK hosts of the Cop26 summit in Glasgow, and comes as some of the other aims of the summit – chiefly, setting the world on a path to limit global heating to 1.5C – are looking hard to reach.UK prime minister Boris Johnson said he was “cautiously optimistic” about reaching a deal to keep the 1.5C target on track. Returning to a football analogy in which he had said the world was the equivalent of 5-1 down, he declared on Monday evening that the score was now “more like 5-2 or 5-3”.US president Joe Biden announced a plan by 90 countries to control methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. Under the agreement, which does not include major emitters Russia and China, emissions of methane would fall 30% by the end of the decade.In another multinational deal, more than 40 countries including the UK, US, EU, India, China and Australia signed up to a plan to coordinate the introduction of clean technologies around the world. By collaborating on things like hydrogen production and electric vehicles, the members of the Breakthrough Alliance hope to bring forward the “tipping point” at which green technology is more affordable than fossil-fuel technology.The group of countries with the most ambitious climate targets, known as the High Ambition Coalition, were boosted by the announcement that the US would be rejoining their ranks after withdrawing from the Paris agreement entirely under former president Donald Trump. Observers said the move would strengthen efforts to stay on track for the target of 1.5C of heating. Continue reading...

Criticism of Santos pavilion display comes as Coalition confirms it will not join global pledge to cut methane

Rishi Sunak should temper his hopes of a huge pool of business cash to fund the net zero transitionAdd up the assets of 450 of the biggest financial companies spread across 45 countries and what do you get? A very big number for Rishi Sunak to boast about, that’s what. About $130tn (£95tn) to be precise.The chancellor, who is kicking off tomorrow’s finance day at the Cop26 conference, will say that 40% of the world’s financial assets is now owned by institutions aligned with the Paris 2015 goal of limiting the increase in global temperature to no more than 1.5C of pre-industrial levels. Continue reading...

‘It is a gigantic issue and they just walked away,’ says US president, who also criticises Russia’s failure to attend Cop26Joe Biden launched a stinging attack on China on Tuesday for the failure of the country’s president, Xi Jinping, to show up to the Cop26 UN climate summit, and failing to show leadership on the climate crisis.The US president said it was a “big mistake” that his Chinese counterpart had chosen not to attend the summit, where more than 120 world leaders have spent the last two days discussing ways to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C. Continue reading...

UK PM claims there has been a turnaround since G20 summit as he urges China to make improved pledgeBoris 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 prime minister had previously said if the climate emergency were a football match the world would be 5-1 down but he said on Monday that the score was now more like 5-2 or 5-3. Continue reading...

Host prime minister says ‘if we don’t fix our climate, it will be an economic catastrophe’ as US says it will cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030

MPs heard about scale of problem during first reading of plastics (wet wipes) billWet wipes which contain plastic are forming “islands” across the UK after being flushed, with rivers changing shape after the products pile up on their banks, MPs have heard as legislation aiming to ban their sale had its first reading in the House of Commons.Labour MP Fleur Anderson’s plastics (wet wipes) bill would prohibit the manufacture and sale of wet wipes containing plastic if it was to pass through parliament and receive royal assent. Continue reading...

Exclusive: campaigners say lack of penalties for dirty assets from Bank of England gives industry little incentive to changeThe Bank of England is facing criticism over the way it is conducting its first climate stress tests, with politicians and campaigners warning that a lack of penalties for dirty assets will give banks little incentive to clean up their act.While the regulator has been praised for committing to the exercise, the Bank of England has come under fire for so far refusing to publish data for individual firms, and stopping short of introducing immediate capital requirements, which would make it more expensive to offer loans and services to fossil fuel companies and high carbon projects. Continue reading...

Nicola Sturgeon says women’s safety paramount particularly after Sarah Everard murderPolice 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.Residents near the Cop venue said police guarding the security cordon told them to walk long distances through Kelvingrove Park and sidestreets in Finnieston because main streets had suddenly been closed off. Continue reading...

Extraordinary measures are being taken to save some of the world’s largest and oldest trees, which are at risk of being wiped out by more intense firesAshtyn Perry was barely as tall as the shovel she stomped into barren ground where a wildfire last year ravaged the California mountain community of Sequoia Crest and destroyed dozens of its signature behemoth trees.The 13-year-old with a broad smile and a braid running to her waist had a higher purpose that, if successful, she’ll never live to see: to plant a baby sequoia that could grow into a giant and live for millennia. Continue reading...

Analysis: first minister can steer clear of any policy failures while pointing to benefits independence could bringAs world leaders, negotiators and activists converged on Glasgow for the start of the Cop climate summit, curious delegates who picked up a Scottish newspaper may have seen a small advert from the Scottish National party.Its main image was of Skye’s famous crags bathed by sunshine, with a soft-focus portrait of the first minister, and it read: “A nation in waiting welcomes the nations of the world.” Continue reading...

UK, US and China among countries representing two-thirds of global economy to agree to push green energy and carsA plan to coordinate the global introduction of clean technologies in order to rapidly drive down their cost has been agreed at the Cop26 summit by world leaders representing two-thirds of the world’s economy.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 increases – as already seen with solar panels and LED lightbulbs. Continue reading...

The coal and gas works, if approved, would result in a nearly 30% increase in emissions within Australia

Ironic prize bestowed for blocking access to negotiations as well as organisational failures

Victoria’s daily Covid numbers drop below 1,000; NSW records 173 cases and four deaths. This blog is now closed

Financing in lead up to Cop26 largest of all major UK banks, finds campaignersBarclays has financed more in fossil fuel projects than any of the UK’s largest banks in the months leading up to the Cop26 climate talks in Glasgow, according to a report by climate finance campaigners.The bank financed $5.6bn (£4.1bn) for new fossil fuel projects from January 2021 to the eve of the UN climate summit, Market Forces found, despite growing international warnings that any new fossil developments would destroy any chance of avoiding a catastrophic climate breakdown. Continue reading...

Fossil fuel advertising on overseas output jars with DG’s call to ‘dial up the focus on sustainability’The BBC received about £300,000 in advertising revenue last year from Saudi Arabia’s national oil company, Aramco, despite BBC director general Tim Davie calling on every arm of the broadcaster to “dial up the focus on sustainability” and reduce net greenhouse gas emissions.Although the BBC does not carry advertising in the UK, much of its overseas output is supported by commercials. Continue reading...

No other country taking part in Cop26 is relying on multiple new reactors to get to net zero by 2050In 2007, Vincent de Rivaz, the then EDF chief executive, said Britain would be “cooking our Christmas turkeys” with electricity from Hinkley Point C nuclear station by 2017. Instead the first concrete was poured that year and the turkey is now scheduled for late 2026.In the race against time to avert dangerous global heating, the UK government has decided to back an untried reactor from Rolls Royce. The first of these could be “plugged into the grid by 2031”, according to Nuclear Industry Association. Continue reading...

More than 100 leaders to commit to halting and reversing deforestation and land degradation by 2030Saving the world’s forests will be one of the cornerstone achievements of the Cop26 climate summit, the UK environment minister Zac Goldsmith has said, with some of the biggest forested nations and consumers of forestry products signing up to an “unprecedented” conservation deal.On Tuesday, more than 100 world leaders will commit to halting and reversing deforestation and land degradation by 2030, backed by nearly £14bn in public and private funding. Major producers and consumers of deforestation-linked commodities including Indonesia, China, Brazil and the US have put their name to the deal, which aims to curtail the second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. Continue reading...

Legal challenge to Keith Pitt’s decision claims development of Beetaloo Basin could potentially lift Australia’s emissions by 13%

Cop26 pledge cautiously welcomed as ‘first step’ in making indigenous rights central to climate crisis talksAt least $1.7bn of funding will be given directly to indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) in recognition of their key role in protecting the planet’s lands and forests, it will be announced at Cop26 today.The governments of the UK, US, Germany, Norway and the Netherlands are leading the $1.7bn (£1.25bn) funding pledge, which is being announced as part of ambitious global efforts to reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030, with campaigners cautiously hopeful that this conference of the parties (Cop) could be the first to properly champion indigenous peoples’ rights. Continue reading...

Historic declaration at Cop26 commits countries to ending major cause of CO2 emissionsWorld leaders have agreed a deal that aims to halt and reverse global deforestation over the next decade as part of a multibillion-dollar package to tackle human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.Xi Jinping, Jair Bolsonaro and Joe Biden are among the leaders who will commit to the declaration at Cop26 in Glasgow on Tuesday to protect vast areas, ranging from the eastern Siberian taiga to the Congo basin, home to the world’s second largest rainforest. Continue reading...

Now most countries have experienced the climate crisis as wildfires, floods or heatwaves, leaders know they must deliverFor a conference that had already been delayed by a year, perhaps this was a fitting start for the delegates and world leaders who made their way to Cop26 with a mission to save the planet.It was raining. There was no shelter. And the thousands of participants who had come to the UK from all four corners of the globe faced the mother of all queues to get inside. Continue reading...

Glasgow conference is focused on more ambitious 2030 cuts but, while PM says Australia may cut emissions by 35%, the 26% to 28% target won’t be changed

The veteran news anchor tweeted presence of ‘20,000 world leaders and delegates’ 47 miles east of actual summitEyebrows were raised at Cop26 on Monday when a veteran US news anchor announced he would be covering the climate summit from Edinburgh – 47 miles east of Glasgow.Wolf Blitzer, a news anchor with CNN, wrote on Twitter that he was reporting from Edinburgh in Scotland, “where 20,000 world leaders and delegates have gathered for the Cop26”. Continue reading...

British monarch urges world leaders to rise to challenge of ‘true statesmanship’The Queen has expressed her hope that world leaders would “rise above the politics of the moment, and achieve true statesmanship” in tackling the climate crisis as she welcomed Cop26 delegates to Glasgow in a recorded video address.In a message played at the evening reception, she also recalled how her “dear late husband, Prince Philip,” had warned of the threat of “increasingly intolerable” world pollution more than half a century ago. Continue reading...

This blog is now closed. Please see below for our stories from the UN climate conference today.

Engine maker and Gulf state to fund startups looking for new ways to hit net zeroThe engine maker Rolls-Royce has entered into a long-term partnership with the Gulf state of Qatar to invest billions in green engineering projects to fund entrepreneurs finding new ways to help transition to net zero.The deal will include the creation of about 1,000 jobs at two campuses – one in northern England and one in Qatar – where climate technology businesses will be created, launched and developed. Continue reading...

PM to fly from Glasgow to London in plane run partly on sustainable fuel rather than taking 4.5-hour trainBoris Johnson is flying back from the Cop26 climate conference on a private plane rather than the train after spending two days warning world leaders to reduce their emissions.The prime minister left himself open to accusations of hypocrisy after urging other countries to do everything possible to pledge lower emissions and warning that they would be judged by their children if they fail to act. Continue reading...

Archbishop of Canterbury said inaction would cause ‘genocide on infinitely greater scale’ than HolocaustThe archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has apologised for likening the threat posed by the climate crisis to the Nazis, while saying the current generation of political leaders will be “cursed” in history if they fail at the Cop26 summit.Interviewed by the BBC at the climate change gathering in Glasgow, Welby said the stakes at Cop were so high that for the leaders attending, “in two generations’ time they will be remembered for this fortnight, and probably this fortnight alone”. Continue reading...

‘Right now, we are falling short,’ US president says, urging other world leaders to embark upon a shift to clean energyJoe Biden has warned that the climate crisis poses “the existential threat to human existence as we know it” and urged other world leaders to embark upon a transformational shift to clean energy, as questions linger over the US president’s ability to deliver this vision at home.Biden, addressing a sparse chamber at crucial UN climate talks that have begun in a frigid and drizzly Glasgow, said that the conference must act as a “kickoff of a decade of ambition and innovation to preserve our shared future”. Continue reading...

Complaints about wait to get in hint at poor organisation at multinational summit

Broadcaster appeals for summit to commit to 1.5C temperature limit to avoid climate catastrophe

As world leaders prepare to commit to halting the destruction of forests, here’s everything you need to know about some of the planet’s most biodiverse placesForests and nature are centre stage at Cop26. On the second day of the Glasgow summit, world leaders are announcing a commitment to halting and reversing deforestation. As the second largest source of greenhouse gases after energy, the land sector accounts for 25% of global emissions, with deforestation and forest degradation contributing to half of this.But why do forests matter to the climate, and how can we halt deforestation? Continue reading...

António Guterres says talks may have to become annual and urges countries to ‘choose ambition’

Prime minister gives details of contract talks after French president accuses him of lying about plans to cancel $90bn dealScott Morrison has hit back against an extraordinary accusation from the French president that Australia’s prime minister lied to him over an abandoned $90bn submarine contract, declaring he will not “cop sledging” about Australia’s integrity.Speaking to reporters in Glasgow where he is attending the UN climate conference Cop26, Morrison said Emmanuel Macron was well aware that Australia was contemplating pulling out of the troubled Naval Group diesel submarine contract. Continue reading...

Campaigners warn Brazil may make empty promises at Cop26 to gain access to conservation moneyAmazon forest defenders are urging delegates at Cop26 not to trust the “greenwashing” promises of Jair Bolsonaro’s government, which has wreaked havoc on the environment over the past three years.Brazil will field one of the biggest delegations at the UN climate talks in Glasgow and fund a lavish promotional pavilion inside the conference centre. According to the agriculture minister, Tereza Cristina Corrêa da Costa Dias, and the environment minister, Joaquim Alvaro Pereira Leite, the message is that Brazil is “a longtime champion of the environmental agenda and an agrifood powerhouse”. Continue reading...

My rage against the senator might consume me if I couldn’t set it down hereLate in the evening on Friday 15 October an alert appeared on my phone that seemed at last to portend the end of the world. Two weeks before the UN climate summit in Glasgow – a make-or-break moment for American leadership and international ambition – Senator Joe Manchin had decided to gut our country’s best, and perhaps last, attempt to save itself. With three decades left to decarbonize the global economy, and a window of Democratic control unlikely to recur for years, Manchin’s benefactors in the coal and gas industry had managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, killing the Clean Electricity Performance Program that would finally have brought their lucrative global arson spree under control.It was hard not to feel like this was game over, a sensation I’d grown accustomed to after a decade working in the American climate movement. It was the same feeling I’d had after the collapse of the Copenhagen climate talks, and the defeat of the Waxman-Markey bill, and the election of a president willing to drown the world to buoy his ego. But though each of those moments felt crushing, the news on the 15th felt worse. Continue reading...

The stress on the food system caused by the pandemic gave the Stewarts an idea: creating a commercial ranch in ArizonaOn the eastern edge of the Sonoran desert, in the grasslands not ten miles north of the US-Mexico border, James and Rachael Stewart have arranged a dozen weight lifting machines and dumbbell sets.At sundown, as they and their four children herd lambs and alpacas into their stalls, the occasional chick or duck passes between these markers of the Stewarts’ previous life. Continue reading...

The global hunger for change – evident as early as the Rio Earth summit in 1992 – is now insatiableIn September 2006, shortly before the annual UN climate talks to be held that year in Nairobi, Kenya, I looked for hope amid the predictions of ecological collapse and the total failure of countries to act on emissions. It was hard going. The best I could manage was to argue that political, social and technological awareness of the climate crisis was growing and starting to translate into action. It was now a race between new ideas and political realities.A personal revolution was taking place, I wrote. “See how far we have [all] come in a generation … Have you thought about installing solar panels or bought renewable energy? Have you chosen not to take a plane or bought a less powerful car? Have you voted for a political party or an individual because of their record on the environment? Have you tried to recycle more? Have you linked heatwaves and hurricanes with climate change, or wondered what kind of physical world your children will inhabit?” Continue reading...

From the seemingly inexorable increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to the rapid growth in green energyThe level of CO has been rising since the Industrial Revolution and is now at its highest for about 4m years. The rate of the rise is even more striking, the fastest for 66m years, with scientists saying we are in “uncharted territory”. Continue reading...

Mohamed Nasheed says the island state is already harmed by rising sea levels caused by climate changeFive months after narrowly surviving a terrorist bomb attack, the former president of the Maldives Mohamed Nasheed will arrive at the Cop26 summit with a defiant message: no compromise on 1.5C.That level of global heating is the most ambitious target on the table at Glasgow. It will require a global mobilisation of resources at a scale not seen outside wartime and at least a halving of fossil fuel emissions and tree burning by the end of this decade. Continue reading...