COP26: 'Window closing' to meet 1.5C warming target - Alok Sharma

The window to keep within the 1.5 degree warming target "is closing", COP26 president Alok Sharma has told the climate summit in Glasgow.

Scientists say that keeping global warming below 1.5C will avoid the worst climate impacts - it was a target agreed upon by world leaders in 2015.

Mr Sharma was addressing delegates on day one of the event in Scotland, which was postponed from 2020.

He said: "During that year climate change did not take time off."

The Conservative MP added that COP26 was "our last best hope" to meet the target originally set in Paris six years ago.

"Where Paris promised, Glasgow delivers," Mr Sharma said. "We know our shared planet is changing for the worse, and we can only address that together."

Mr Sharma, who was appointed to the role of COP26 president on 8 January, said the "rapidly changing climate is sounding an alarm to the world".

He earlier told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show that "this is on leaders" and they needed "to come forward".

The two-week COP26 summit will see delegates from about 200 countries discuss how to cut emissions by 2030.

At face value, things do not look promising, for a simple reason: the previous 25 of these giant conferences failed to turn off the tap of the greenhouse gases that are driving up global temperatures.

Despite three decades of talking, the planet is now at least 1.1C hotter than the pre-industrial level - and rising.

For this conference, however, expectations for real progress are higher than usual.

That's partly because the risks are hitting home. This year floods killed 200 people in Germany, heatwaves struck chilly Canada and even the Siberian Arctic was burning.

And scientists are clearer than ever that avoiding the most damaging temperatures means halving global carbon emissions by 2030 - a deadline looming close enough to focus minds.

The COP26 global climate summit in Glasgow in November is seen as crucial if climate change is to be brought under control. Almost 200 countries are being asked for their plans to cut emissions, and it could lead to major changes to our everyday lives.