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Before it began, the United Nations global climate summit in Glasgow, known as COP26, was billed by its chief organizer as the “last, best hope” for saving the planet.

Halfway through, optimistic reviews of progress noted that heads of state and industry giants are in place to start the meeting with new climate promises; it was a sign that the momentum was developing in the right direction.

Pessimistic view? Gassy promises mean little without concrete plans. Swedish activist Greta Thunberg accused the conference of being a bunch of “blah, blah, blah”.

On Saturday, diplomats from nearly 200 countries reached a major agreement aimed at intensifying efforts to combat climate change by urging governments to come back with stronger plans to reduce planet-warming emissions next year, and to “at least double” funding to rich countries. To protect the most vulnerable countries from the dangers of a warmer planet by 2025.

Take a look at some key takeaways from the 26th annual United Nations climate change summit.

Running out of action time

The agreement provided a clear consensus that all nations must do much more immediately to prevent a catastrophic rise in global temperatures.

When the conference was opened by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, said The top priority should be to limit the rise in global temperatures to just 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, above pre-industrial levels. This threshold, scientists warnedBeyond that, the risk of catastrophes such as deadly heat waves, water shortages and ecosystem collapse increases immensely. (The world has already warmed by 1.1 degrees Celsius.)

“The truth is, you have two different realities,” Helen Mountford, vice president of climate and economics at the World Resources Institute, said last week. “We have made more progress than we could have imagined a few years ago. But still not close enough.”

The agreement outlines specific steps the world must take, from nearly halving global carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 to reducing emissions of another potent greenhouse gas, methane. And it sets new rules to hold countries accountable for their progress or failures.

Maldives Environment Minister Shauna Aminath said the latest text lacked the “urgency” that vulnerable countries like him need. “What seems balanced and pragmatic to other parties is not going to help the Maldives adapt over time,” he said.

Who needs to cut it and how much?

The final agreement leaves the critical question of how much and how fast each nation must cut its emissions over the next decade.

Rich countries, including the United States, Canada, Japan, and most of Western Europe, make up only 12 percent of the global population today, but are responsible for 50 percent of the planet-warming greenhouse gases emitted from fossil fuels and industry in the past. 170 years.

President Biden and European leaders have insisted that countries like India, Indonesia and South Africa need to accelerate their move away from coal and other fossil fuels. But these countries say they lack the financial resources to do so, and rich countries are stingy with aid.

A decade ago, the world’s richest economies pledged to mobilize $100 billion a year in climate finance for poorer countries by 2020. However, they fell. tens of billions of dollars a year. The COP26 agreement still deprives many developing countries of the funds they need to produce cleaner energy and cope with the increasing number of extreme weather disasters.

Increasing call for disaster relief and regulation

One of the biggest fights at the Glasgow summit is that of the world’s wealthiest nations, which to date have been disproportionately responsible for global warming, must compensate poor nations For damage caused by increased temperatures.

Calls for this fund, called “loss and damage,” are separate from the money to help poor countries adapt to a changing climate. Its proponents say loss and damage is a matter of historical responsibility and will pay for irreparable losses such as the loss of national lands, culture and ecosystems.

The Paris agreement in 2015 called for clearer rules on how to allow polluting companies and countries to buy permits and trade to reduce global emissions, but extremely intense and technical subjectIt remained a topic of discussion in Glasgow until Saturday.

Negotiators announced a major deal on how to regulate the fast-growing global market in carbon offsets, where a company or country compensates for its own emissions by paying someone else to reduce their own. One of the most challenging technical issues is how to properly account for this global trade so that any reductions in emissions are not overestimated or counted twice.

Vulnerable countries insist that rich nations give themselves some of the revenues from carbon market transactions to help build resilience to climate change. The United States and the European Union have opposed this, but island nations in particular want a mechanism to enable carbon trading to lead to an overall reduction in global emissions.

“We want a reliable market that will provide not only a free pass but a reduction in emissions for countries to purchase cheap credits overseas to meet their national needs,” said Ian Fry, negotiator for the Solomon Islands, an archipelago in the Southwest Pacific Ocean. .

Other international agreements emerged from the summit

• USA and China: Two countries joint agreement announced In this decade, China has committed to do more to reduce emissions, and for the first time to develop a plan to reduce methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. The agreement between the rivals, the world’s two biggest polluters, surprised the delegates who came to the summit. The deal was scant in details, and China agreed to “progressively reduce” coal from 2026, but did not specify how much or for how long.

• deforestationLeaders of more than 100 countries, including: Brazil, China, Russia and the United States Promises to end deforestation by 2030. The agreement covers about 85 percent of the world’s forests, which are crucial to absorbing carbon dioxide and slowing the pace of global warming. Some advocacy groups have criticized the deal as a lack of teeth, noting that similar efforts have failed in the past.

• Methane: More than 100 countries have agreed to reduce their emissions of methane, a powerful planet-warming gas, by 30 percent by the end of this decade. The word was part of a crackdown by the Biden administration, which also announced that the Environmental Protection Agency would limit methane from nearly one million oil and gas rigs in the United States.

• India: India, “net zero” emissions, Setting a deadline for 2070 to stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. India, one of the world’s largest consumers of coal, said it will significantly expand the portion of its total energy mix coming from renewable sources, with half of its energy coming from sources other than fossil fuels by 2030.

The different faces of climate action

There was a clear gender and generation gap in the Glasgow talks. It is mostly the elderly and men who have the power to decide how much the world will warm in the coming decades. It is mostly the youth and women who are most resentful at the pace of climate action.

Malik Amin Aslam, an adviser to the Pakistani prime minister, mocked some of the distant net zero targets announced during the conference, including those of India: “The average is 60, no one in the negotiating room lives to live this net zero in 2070,” he said.

On the first day of the conference, Greta Thunberg joined scores protesters On the streets outside the United Nations climate conference Glasgow. During the two-week conference he and other young climate activists – Vanessa Nakate, Dominika Lasota and Mitzi Tan – took part in the protests in large numbers.

Miss Thunberg told the BBC in an interview before the summit, where he was not formally invited to speak. He said he thinks the organizers don’t invite too many young speakers because “if they invite too many ‘radical’ young people, they may fear that they will look bad.”

It was just a challenge to keep the talks going during the pandemic

NS climate meetingOne of the largest international gatherings held during the coronavirus pandemic, postponed last year.

Many summit attendees have traveled from countries where vaccines are still not widely available. globally, less than half of all adults are vaccinated against Covid-19, showing vaccine disparities. Travel and quarantine restrictions meant additional costs for accommodation, both in time and money, making travel impossible for some.

And some participants, such as Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir V. Putin and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, have decided not to travel.

Halfway through, conference organizers issued a letter of apology to attendees for the long queues and video difficulties, saying it was difficult to plan around Covid restrictions. Patricia Espinosa, secretary general of the UN climate body, asked attendees to “be with us” as the organizers grapple with complex regulations, such as ensuring that everyone who enters the venue has tested negative for the coronavirus and enforcing controls over the number of people. in meeting rooms.