COP26 live updates: As high-stakes climate change summit begins, Biden insists: “this is the decisive decade”

Top officials from the Biden administration on Monday announced the launch of the U.S. Center at COP26, as the White House released a long-term strategy for eliminating America’s carbon emissions by mid-century.

John F. Kerry, President Biden’s special presidential envoy for climate, told a crowd of diplomats, journalists and others that the U.S. Center did not exist at previous United Nations climate summits under former president Donald Trump.

Kerry said the science is clear on the need to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, the more ambitious goal of the 2015 Paris agreement.

“The scientists have made it clear as a matter not of politics, not of ideology … but as a matter of mathematics and physics,” he said.

Kerry noted that the Biden administration on Monday unveiled a long-term strategy to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. He said the document was a “companion” to the United States’ previously released commitment under the Paris agreement, known as a nationally determined contribution, or NDC.

White House national climate adviser Gina McCarthy drew applause and laughter from the crowd when she cracked jokes in her characteristic thick Boston accent.

McCarthy said Biden’s $1.75 trillion social spending plan would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by “well over” a gigaton. “And for all those whispering, ‘Well how much is that,’ I’ll tell you it’s well over a billion tons,” she said.

McCarthy said that even though the Trump administration “didn’t particularly like to talk about climate change,” America has continued to reduce its planet-warming pollution. She added later: “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re kicking butt on offshore wind.”

GLASGOW, Scotland — In an attempt to stir world leaders into action, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson vividly outlined the difference that a seemingly small rise in global temperatures could make.

The landmark eco-summit in Glasgow is widely seen as a crucial moment when countries must deliver on the Paris agreement in 2015, when leaders agreed to pursue efforts to prevent global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius than in preindustrial times.

“Two degrees more, and we jeopardize the food supply for hundreds of millions of people, crops wither, locusts swarm,” he said.

One degree more, and the extreme weather patterns the world is already seeing will get a whole lot worse.

“Three degrees, and you can add more wildfires and cyclones, twice as many. Five times as many droughts, and 36 times as many heat waves,” he said.

He continued, “Four degrees and we say goodbye to whole cities — Miami, Alexandria, Shanghai, all lost beneath the waves.”

Alok Sharma, the COP26 president, has said that the Glasgow summit is the “last, best hope” to keep 1.5 degrees Celsius within reach.

GLASGOW, Scotland — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson compared the world’s climate crisis to a James Bond movie, arguing that the planet is "one minute to midnight” on the doomsday clock — a situation with which the fictional spy is very familiar.

“We are in roughly the same position, my fellow global leaders, as James Bond today — except that the tragedy is this is not a movie, and the doomsday device is real,” he said at the start of his address to 120 leaders from around the world.

“Humanity has long since run down the clock on climate change,” he said, “it’s one minute to midnight on that doomsday clock, and we need to act now.”

Johnson also referenced climate activist Greta Thunberg, though not by name, when he said that all the promises made at previous COP conferences, “will be nothing but blah blah blah, to coin a phrase” unless the Cop26 in Glasgow is “the moment we get real about climate change.”

Johnson urged leaders to make specific pledges on “coal, cars, cash and trees” — his oft-repeated slogan for top climate priorities for the summit — and said that leaders should not “fluff our lines,” warning that the younger generations will “not forgive us.”

“If we fail, they will not forgive us. They will know that Glasgow was the historic turning point when history failed to turn.”

António Guterres is nothing if not blunt.

“Our addiction to fossil fuels is pushing humanity to the brink. We face a stark choice: Either we stop it — or it stops us,” the U.N. secretary general said Monday during the opening of COP26 in Glasgow. “We are digging our own graves.”

Guterres pointed to the unmistakable signs of a changing planet: rising sea levels, warming oceans, forests that now emit more carbon than they store. The six years since the world signed the Paris climate accord have been the six hottest on record, he noted.

And yet, current promises from countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions remain woefully inadequate to avoid what scientists say would be catastrophic levels of warming.

“As we open this much anticipated climate conference, we are still heading for climate disaster,” Guterres said Monday. “We face a moment of truth.”

Guterres also announced plans to establish a group of experts to create clear and measurable standards to evaluate “net zero” commitments from non-state actors, given that such long-term pledges often can be so vague. Ultimately, he urged leaders to use the two weeks ahead to act collectively and swiftly to tackle a growing crisis.

“The sirens are sounding,” he said. “On behalf of this and future generations, I urge you: Choose ambition. Choose solidarity. Choose to safeguard our future and save humanity.”

In the days and months leading up to the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, stark warnings from scientists and policymakers made clear that time is running out. Without more ambitious action on emissions, the world is on a dangerous trajectory that “may lead to a temperature rise of about 2.7°C by the end of the century,” according to a U.N. report. Scientists say such a rise would have a catastrophic impact around the world.

Complete coverage from the COP26 U.N. climate summit

The event, known as COP26, will involve two weeks of negotiations, during which countries will attempt to set bolder national targets for limiting emissions, help vulnerable and developing nations deal with existing climate catastrophes and finance shifts to greener economies as well as set rules that govern everything from carbon markets to how the world will measure its progress. As thousands of diplomats, activists and scientists will attend the event, here are some of the figures and groups who may have a substantial impact on the talks.

On a recent afternoon at the United Nations, as boats meandered 38 stories below along the sun-splashed East River, the world’s top diplomat was talking about his three granddaughters. And, in particular, what they might think of him at the end of this century.

“I would not like them to come to say that the planet is hell, and that I have not done enough to avoid it,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said in an interview with The Washington Post.

He wants to give them a different story to tell:

“That finally, a few decades ago, there were some generations that understood that we were moving in the wrong direction.” Guterres hopes he is among those that help persuade the world to make “peace with nature” in order to create “the best possible conditions for human beings to inhabit planet Earth.”

In the lead-up to COP26, Guterres has been working feverishly to write that happier ending.

ISTANBUL — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is skipping the Glasgow climate conference over a dispute regarding his security arrangements, he told reporters late Sunday.

Erdogan had been scheduled to fly to Glasgow, Scotland, after attending the G-20 Summit in Rome. Early Monday, Turkish news agencies reported that Erdogan had flown back to Turkey, without giving a reason for his return.

“We had security protocol standards that we requested” for the conference, Erdogan told reporters traveling with him as he returned to Turkey from Rome Sunday. “These were the standards in protocol that were always applied to us and to all other leaders on all our international visits. However, we were told that these could not be met at the last moment,” he said, according to a transcript of his comments carried by Turkey’s Dunya newspaper.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had at some point told the Turkish side that the issue was resolved, “but at the last moment, he came back to us and said that the Scottish side was making difficulties,” Erdogan said, adding that his decision to cancel “wasn’t just about our own security, it was about the reputation of the country.”

Reuters quoted an unnamed senior Turkish official as saying that Ankara’s “demands regarding the number of vehicles for security and some other security related demands were not fully met.” Erdogan’s cancellation was first reported by Middle East Eye, which said Turkey’s environment minister and other high-ranking officials were still attending the Glasgow conference.

Last week, Erdogan said he was planning to meet President Biden in Glasgow, but their meeting was moved forward, and the two met in Rome on Sunday.

Turkey was one of the original signatories to the 2016 Paris climate accord but only ratified the agreement earlier this month, after arguing for years that it should be treated as a developing, rather than a developed country. Turkey suffered from a series of environmental calamities last year blamed on global warming, including the worst wildfires in its history.

Turkey was the last G-20 country to ratify the pact.

GLASGOW, Scotland — The Duke of Rothesay, a lifelong environmentalist who recently made headlines when he admitted he runs his Aston Martin car on wine and cheese, is one of the most high-profile speakers who will address the COP26 summit on Monday.

Um, who?

That’s a title belonging to Prince Charles. You may know His Royal Highness best as the Prince of Wales, or Harry and William’s dad, but when in Scotland, Charles and his wife, Camilla, use the titles the Duke and Duchess of Rothesay.

The title is given to the heir of the British throne.

The very first Duke of Rothesay was David Stewart, the son of King Robert III of the Scots, who was given the dukedom way back in 1398. It was then used by the heir apparent to the throne of Scotland until 1707.

Today, the dukedom is used by the next in line to the British throne. Prince Charles actually has a plethora of Scottish titles, including Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Prince and Great Steward of Scotland, and the delightfully gallant-sounding Lord of the Isles.

Charles will be attending an evening reception for world leaders on Monday night where he will be joined by his son and daughter-in-law, Prince William and Catherine. But since we’re in Scotland, you can call them the Earl and Countess of Strathearn.