Former energy minister Greg Barker went to climate talks as part of Russian Federation party
A Conservative peer attended Cop26 in Glasgow as part of Russia’s group of participants at the UN climate summit, the Guardian can reveal.
Greg Barker, a former energy minister when David Cameron was prime minister, attended the talks as part of the party of the Russian Federation, according to a list published by the UN.
Continue reading...Last-minute hitch on coal almost reduced Alok Sharma to tears as Glasgow climate pact made imperfect progress
As weary delegates trudged into the Scottish Event Campus on the banks of the Clyde on Saturday, few realised what a mountain they still had to climb. The Cop26 climate talks were long past their official deadline of 6pm on Friday, but there were strong hopes that the big issues had been settled. A deal was tantalisingly close.
The “package” on offer was imperfect – before countries even turned up in Glasgow they were meant to have submitted plans that would cut global carbon output by nearly half by 2030, to limit global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Although most countries submitted plans, they were not strong enough and analysis found they would lead to a disastrous 2.4C of heating.
Continue reading...Agreement arrived at on Saturday night made progress in some important areas but poor countries say it is not nearly enough
Sharma says nations like China and India will have to justify themselves to developing nations.
“This deal does keep 1.5C in reach,” insists Sharma, who says he has received many messages of thanks from around the world for the deal.
Continue reading...Glasgow Climate Pact adopted despite last-minute intervention by India to water down language on phasing out dirtiest fossil fuel
Countries have agreed a deal on the climate crisis that its backers say will keep within reach the goal of limiting global heating to 1.5C, the key threshold of safety set out in the 2015 Paris agreement.
Alok Sharma, the UK cabinet minister and Cop president, said the deal was “imperfect” but showed “consensus and support”. He said: “I hope we can leave this conference united having delivered something significant for people and planet together as one.”
Continue reading...Deadlock stretched climate summit past its scheduled end with hopes leaders will reach agreement by Saturday
Cop26 climate talks were closing in on a global deal aimed at limiting devastating global warming, with UK organisers hoping for a final agreement to the marathon negotiations on Saturday.
Delegates from nearly 200 nations are tasked with keeping alive the 2015 Paris goal of limiting temperature rises to 1.5C, as warming-driven disasters hit home around the world.
Continue reading...Delegates are told they must reach a deal to limit global heating or future generations will be forced into violent competition for resources
Children born today will be fighting each other for food and water in 2050 if the Cop26 climate summit fails, exhausted delegates were told as negotiators fight over the final details of a potential deal.
The deadline for the fortnight-long talks to finish came and went as leading figures took to the floor for what they hoped would be the final time, to exhort each other to cooperate in the interests of people threatened by the climate crisis around the world.
Continue reading...Day eight at the Glasgow summit focuses on loss, adaptation and damage
The fossil fuel industry has hundreds of people accredited to the key climate talks in Glasgow - giving the sector a bigger delegation than any country, campaigners have claimed.
Analysis of the UN’s provisional list of named attendees suggests 503 delegates at Cop26 who are either directly affiliated with fossil fuel companies or are part of country delegations but are affiliated to oil, gas or coal firms, PA reports.
Continue reading...Up to 100,000, including Kahnawake Mohawk delegates, brave Glasgow rain as 22 arrested after scientists blockade bridge
People on almost every continent were gathering for marches and rallies on Saturday to mark a Global Day for Climate Justice, halfway through the Glasgow climate change summit.
Activists in the Philippines, eight hours ahead of the UK, had already finished their rally as protesters gathered in Scotland. There were also rallies in South Korea, Indonesia, the Netherlands and France. The Belgian arm of Extinction Rebellion occupied a street in Brussels.
Continue reading...World leaders have convened on Glasgow for the first day of the UN’s climate conference
Travel chaos hampered many delegates and observers’ arrival in Glasgow for Cop26 yesterday, with a tree on the tracks taking out the west coast main line for a large part of the day. Trains on the east coast line were also delayed after overhead wires near Peterborough sustained damage.
Guardian reporters Patrick Greenfield (who ended up having to hire a van from Luton and drive to Glasgow) and Phoebe Weston (who endured a heavily delayed journey up the east coast line) have more details here.
1. The arrival. Here we go again. Teams of jet-lagged lobbyists, diplomats, journos, bankers and business folk queue with delegations of indigenous peoples and youth groups, lawyers, NGOs and economists to enter the parallel universe that is a UN climate Cop. Within hours, the complaints will start about the price of coffee, the distance between meeting rooms, the Glaswegian accents, the rain, the trains, the traffic, the UN security, the heavy policing and the dearth of good restaurants.
Continue reading...With strong drinks and stronger music, rock bars are fiercely independent havens for UK metalheads, who have been donating thousands to keep them alive after Covid
It’s Friday night in north London’s Black Heart, a rock and metal bar tucked away on a Camden side street. The walls and ceiling are – inevitably – painted black, the beer taps are furnished with antlers, and the speakers are blasting out Metallica’s Enter Sandman. As the chorus hits, the whole bar breaks into song, and the bartender turns down the volume so all that can be heard is a room full of joyous metalheads belting out: “We’re off to never-never land!”
As pints splash and voices echo, the scene feels poignant: pandemic lockdowns left rock fans wondering when they might have moments like this again, with the Black Heart nearly closing down until it was saved by a crowdfunding campaign with prize draws that raised more than £150,000 in seven weeks.
Continue reading...If leaders in Glasgow do not act to ratchet up carbon cutting, the alternative is a dialling up of calamitous global heating
Cop26 may involve dozens of world leaders, cost billions of pounds, generate reams of technical jargon and be billed as the last chance to prevent calamitous global heating, but at its simplest the climate conference in Glasgow is a debate about dialling up or dialling down risk.
Continue reading...Exclusive: upbeat US climate envoy anticipates big announcements from key players at Glasgow talks
The world is poised to make a big leap forward at the UN Cop26 climate summit, with world leaders “sharpening their pencils” to make fresh commitments that could put the goals of the 2015 Paris agreement within reach, John Kerry has said.
Kerry, special envoy for climate to Joe Biden, gave an upbeat assessment of the prospects for Cop26, which begins in Glasgow at the end of this month, saying he anticipated “surprising announcements” from key countries.
Continue reading...Polar Zero exhibition in Glasgow features sculpture encasing air extracted from start of Industrial Revolution
An ampoule of Antarctic air from the year 1765 forms the centrepiece of a new exhibition that reveals the hidden histories contained in polar ice to visitors attending the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow.
The artist Wayne Binitie has spent the past five years undertaking an extraordinary collaboration with scientists of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), who drill, analyse and preserve cylinders of ice from deep in the ice sheet that record past climate change.
Continue reading...Climate groups concerned about presence in Glasgow of officers from forces known for heavy-handed tactics
Climate campaigners are worried an influx of officers from elsewhere in the UK will undermine Police Scotland’s commitment to rights-based policing of protests at Cop26.
Groups planning protests around the critical November conference have told the Guardian they are concerned about the presence of officers from forces known for their use of heavy-handed tactics and are unclear how they will be held to account for their behaviour.
Continue reading...Campaigners call for parades to be re-routed as up to 13,000 people expected to converge in city centre
Campaigners against anti-Catholic bigotry and anti-Irish discrimination will gather in protest around vulnerable churches on Saturday, as Glasgow braces itself for the largest gathering of Orange marchers since the pandemic.
More than 30 of the controversial Protestant parades will converge in the city centre to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the first Battle of the Boyne parade, with potential turnout estimated from 5,000 to 13,000. Hundreds of police officers are expected to be deployed on the day, with 32 streets closed until mid-afternoon to facilitate the marchers.
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Myanmar to Peru
Continue reading...Activists and local people tell how they forced the release of two men detained in an enforcement van
It was just after 9am on Thursday and he was finishing breakfast when the callout came. Kenmure Street’s “Van Man” – the activist who spent nearly eight hours squeezed underneath an immigration enforcement van to prevent the detention of two men on Glasgow’s southside – was on his bike in minutes.
“It’s not often you can catch raids in the act like this, but the southside has a lot of folks pulling together,” he said. “The only way that day could have ended was with our neighbours’ release; there were simply too many local people standing in the street for the police to have taken the van away. The strategy does work – and we want the world to understand that it was the people on the streets who won that victory, not the politicians.”
Continue reading...Hundreds of people surrounded vehicle men were held in and chanted ‘these are our neighbours, let them go’
Campaigners have hailed a victory for Glaswegian solidarity and told the Home Office “you messed with the wrong city” as two men detained by UK Immigration Enforcement were released back into their community after a day of protest.
Police Scotland intervened to free the men after a tense day-long standoff between immigration officials and hundreds of local residents, who surrounded their van in a residential street on the southside of Glasgow to stop the detention of the men during Eid al-Fitr.
Continue reading...Cressida Dick faces cross-party outrage while vigil organisers say force failed to work with them
The Metropolitan police commissioner, Cressida Dick, was under mounting pressure last night after widespread criticism of her force’s handling of a London vigil in memory of Sarah Everard.
Priti Patel, the home secretary, and Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, both said they had demanded an explanation from the Met, amid accusations that officers had grabbed women during clashes with the crowd and mismanaged the largely peaceful vigil in Clapham, south London.
Continue reading...We return to speak to the people we interviewed pre-election last December. How have they fared?
The mist of uncertainty that worried east Belfast voters in the run-up the general election has given way, a year later, to a depressing clarity: things have got worse. Covid-19 has battered Northern Ireland’s economy, health system and power-sharing government. And Brexit has become only more ominous, with warnings of possible disruptions to trade and food supplies in January.
Continue reading...