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NEW DELHI — US climate change ambassador John Kerry said on Monday it would be a “big, big mistake” to delay a major United Nations summit on global warming, due in Scotland in November.

“The show must go on,” said Mr. Kerry.

The summit was postponed once due to the coronavirus pandemic. A coalition of more than 1,000 environmental groups last week once again called for it to be pushed backciting increasing caseloads and arguing that respondents from the poorest countries still do not have access to vaccines and cannot afford the necessary costs of quarantine in a hotel.

Known as COP26, the Glasgow, Scotland summit is billed as the planet’s best chance to cut fossil fuel emissions that cause climate change. Nearly 20,000 diplomats, business leaders and activists are expected to attend, and nations are under increasing pressure to announce ambitious action to prevent the worst consequences of climate change.

Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, a research institute in Kenya, and one of the groups Procrastination said he feared “only rich countries and NGOs from those countries would be able to participate”.

But a group of 39 small island nations most vulnerable to climate change insists the global meeting goes as planned. The group said in a statement that a delay would only benefit the fossil fuel industry.

The British government said last week that the first doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine will be administered to any delegate who requests it. The United Nations chief of the conference, Alok Sharma, said in a statement that Britain would otherwise have a high Covid-19 case.

Mr. Kerry said he believed the conference could be held safely.

“There is no reason to delay in this world of vaccines and social distancing,” Mr. Kerry said. And he warned that “any delay will allow nations to step back, step back, perhaps give up on a commitment.”

The latest scientific assessment from the United Nations scientific panel has found that the devastating effects of global warming are now inevitable, and the window to prevent even worse consequences is quickly closing.

Mr Kerry said the scientists’ warning underlined the urgency of the Glasgow meeting.

“We don’t have time to deal with regrouping,” Mr. Kerry said. “The world needs cooking about it.”