Prime Minister Boris Johnson: Time running out to tackle climate change

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has opened the COP26 summit in Glasgow by warning that time is running out to tackle climate change.

The prime minsiter said it was now “one minute to midnight on the doomsday clock”.

Echoing teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg, who famously accused world leaders of talking “blah, blah, blah” on the climate emergency, Johnson said: “I was there, with many of you, in Copenhagen 11 years ago when we acknowledged we had a problem.

“I was there in Paris six years ago, when we agreed to net zero and to try to restrain the rise in the temperature of the planet to 1.5 degrees. And all those promises will be nothing but blah, blah, blah - to coin a phrase. And the anger and impatience of the world be uncontainable unless we make this COP26 in Glasgow the moment when we get real about climate change.”

He said: “Humanity has long since run down the clock on climate change. It’s one minute to midnight on that Doomsday clock and we need to act now. If we don’t get serious about climate change today, it will be too late for our children to do so tomorrow.”

There were long queues to get into the conference this morning, with world leaders including President Joe Biden and France's Emmanuel Macron in attendance.

Earlier, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the summit should feel “bloody uncomfortable” for world leaders whose actions did not match their words on tackling the crisis.