COP26 United Nations climate summit now underway in Glasgow

Scores of world leaders are being welcomed to Glasgow for a climate conference amid gloom over the meeting’s chances of agreeing to new measures to limit global warming.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U-S President Joe Biden will be among dozens of world leaders who will address a pivotal climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland Monday.

Trudeau has said the climate group will keep putting pressure on governments to do more to slow global warming.

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He admits it is a challenging process to shift the trajectory of the world off of fossil fuels and onto more renewables and reduce our carbon emissions.

But he said so many in the world — including G20 members — are committed to doing the hard work.

Long lineups

Prime Minister Boris Johnson and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed leaders one by one with elbow bumps and smiles in front of a giant planet Earth on a blue background. The greetings were due to go on for hours, since more than 120 leaders are coming to Glasgow for the first two days of the 12-day summit.

Delegates, observers and journalists had a less welcoming experience as they arrived at the huge conference venue beside the River Clyde in Glasgow. Thousands lined up in a chilly wind to get through a bottleneck at the entrance to the venue, long before security. Some already turned back and decided to work from their hotels amid concern they won’t make it in on time for negotiating meetings.

Johnson issued a stark warning on the eve of the conference, saying it is the last chance to keep alive the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times. He said that “if Glasgow fails then the whole thing fails.”

This item has been corrected to show that leaders were greeted with elbow bumps, not fist bumps.

Not all leaders to attend

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan decided not to travel to Glasgow to attend the COP26 climate conference and flew straight back to Turkey from the Group of 20 summit in Rome.

The state-run Anadolu Agency said Erdogan’s plane landed in Istanbul early Monday.

Erdogan’s office didn’t provide an explanation for the change of plans. Turkish media reports said however, that the Turkish president decided to cancel his trip to Glasgow over security concerns, following restrictions that would be imposed on the size of the Turkish delegation as well as on the number of their motorised vehicles.

Turkey’s parliament ratified the Paris climate agreement last month after holding off for years as it sought to be reclassified as a developing country rather than a developed country.