Cop26 live: world ‘heading for 1.9C of heating’, climate model projects

Rayner brings up the subject of cuts to development aid, which are hampering the climate efforts of poor countries. The government has received a lot of criticism for these cuts, and representatives from developing nations have said the UK is setting a bad example to other countries as Cop26 presidents and hosts of the talks.

Rayner urges the prime minister to pay attention to detail in the negotiations: “If he fails to deliver, we will all pay the price.”

Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner responds (she’s in the hot seat because Keir Starmer is still isolating with Covid-19).

She says everybody in parliament wants the conference to be a success, but that there is cause for concern. She says the G20 meeting at the weekend was an opportunity to apply pressure on the major polluting nations to commit to a pathway to 1.5C and to bring about a just transition, but the opportunity was not taken.

Rayner says urgent action is needed, and that it is the PM’s responsibility to lead by example.

She says the UK government is refusing to take the lead on coal mines even within its own borders and agreeing a trade deal with Australia that undermines key climate pledges.

“Far more still needs to be done to spare humanity from catastrophic climate change,” says Johnson. He says that for some island states the negotiations are a matter of national survival.

Johnson says good progress has been made at Cop26 so far, and that nations comprising 90% of the world economy are now committed to net zero, up from 30% two years ago. He rattles off various pledges that have been made at the conference so far.

But he ends with a warning: “Whether we can summon the collective wisdom and will to save ourselves from an avoidable disaster still hangs in the balance,” he says.

Johnson says the G20 has a special duty to act as it accounts for 80% of the world economy. He says 18 countries in the G20 have now made specific net zero commitments, and says every member at the weekend G20 meeting in Rome agreed to various measures to reduce emissions, including stopping financing for overseas coal projects.

PMQs is over and UK prime minister Boris Johnson is making a statement to parliament about Cop26.

“This is the moment when we must turn words into action,” he says, echoing the Queen’s words on Monday. “If we fail then Paris will have failed, and every summit going back to Rio in 1992 will have failed.”

A giant image of the Queen has been displayed on the famous billboards in Piccadilly Square, London. It quotes her as saying “The time for words has now moved to the time for action”. She reportedly said this at a dinner held for world leaders attending Cop26 on Monday night, but it’s a handily reusable quote for almost any situation, should the billboard’s owners feel like keeping her up there.

Climate Action Network International’s daily “fossil of the day” award for countries they see as blocking climate action was shared by three countries yesterday:

• Norway, after new prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre said Norwegian gas was “not the problem, but part of the solution for a successful transition to renewable energy”
• Japan, after PM Fumio Kishida said fossil fuel plants were essential as part of the transition to renewables. Japan is a big coal user and plans to continue operating coal plants well beyond 2030
• Australia (for the second day in a row) after they used their pavilion to host gas company Santos. My colleague Adam Morton in Australia has more on that story here.

My colleague Andrew Sparrow is about to cover prime minister’s questions in the UK politics liveblog. Although it is likely to be largely about the Owen Paterson suspension vote, there are also likely to be questions about Cop26 and the government’s recent climate announcements.

You can follow along here:

A project aiming to preserve indigenous languages has been launched at Cop26. The Living Language Land project have released recordings of 26 words that highlight humanity’s ties to Earth.

One such word is |xau from the Namibian |Xam language, defined as “to shoot with a magical arrow or go on a magical expedition”.

Read about and listen to more of the words from the project in this piece by my colleague Severin Carrell:

This morning sees the announcement of the winners of Cup26, described by its organisers as “football’s biggest climate tournament” (a category in which it has little competition).

Over recent weeks, fans and schoolchildren supporting 49 British clubs have been competing to record as many green actions as they can, from making a bird feeder to eating a vegetarian meal to installing a smart meter.

Cambridge United came top of the table, and the organisers say that as a result 1,000 football pitches in the Democratic Republic of the Congo will now be protected.

Somewhere a butterfly flaps its wings, a Cambridge United fan eats a veggie burger, and in 10-15 years perhaps we can expect the emergence of the next Lomana LuaLua.