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It's commonly used as a comparison to explain how large places around the world are, but the size of Wales is increasingly under threat from climate change.

Experts say the country's outline looks set to shrink over the next century, driven by rising sea levels, increasing coastal erosion and flooding caused by a warming planet.

An estimated 2,000 homes are at risk of falling into the sea because of erosion, while 36,000 more are under threat from coastal flooding by the end of the century if defences are not maintained.

Our colleagues at BBC Wales have been speaking to experts about the impact of climate change and how we can protect the nation's iconic coastline.

Read more here.

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We're coming to the end of the summit and as you can imagine, it's getting pretty complicated. Here's what we know.

What's happening today?

Negotiators from 197 parties - that is, countries and blocs such as the EU - are now working towards a final agreement on tackling climate change. There are a lot of complex factors at play, so these talks could take quite a long time.

A new draft of an agreement has just been released - but this doesn't mean an agreement has been reached, as parties can still ask for amendments to be made. In short, it's not over until it's over.

What are the key issues?

The overarching goal is to figure out a way to keep global temperature rises below 1.5C from pre-industrial levels by 2100.

But there are some sticking points, particularly around money.

The most recent draft has also, compared to a previous draft, strengthened calls for countries to tighten their climate targets - but it's watered down language around fossil fuels.

For example, the text on phasing out coal now talks about phasing out "unabated" coal, and references to ending subsidies for fossil fuels now specify "inefficient" subsidies for fossil fuels.

UN Secretary General António Guterres told AP news agency that the 1.5C target was on "life support" - and climate scientists have also warned that, based on the pledges already made, we're likely to overshoot. Earlier this week the scientific research group Climate Action Tracker said we were on track to hit a rise of 2.4C.

Why does it matter?

Climate change is directly linked to extreme weather events, such as wildfires and flooding. Developing countries are at the greatest risk.

With extreme weather causing widespread destruction that makes resources scarce, climate change has also been linked directly to conflicts and mass migration movements.

If we exceed the 1.5C goal, island states in particular warn that they'll be at risk of being completely submerged in water. Earlier in the summit Satyendra Prasad, Fiji's ambassador to the UN, said: "Beyond 1.5 we cannot imagine a future. It is not a number for negotiation."

Prepare for an ambiguous end, rather than a bangpublished at 11:50 Greenwich Mean Time 12 November 2021

11:50 GMT 12 November 2021

Adam Fleming
Chief political correspondent, reporting from COP26

Some of the ambitious elements of the draft agreement are still in there.

Countries will be asked to come to the next COP in Egypt next year with more ambitious pledges to cut their emissions of greenhouses gases.

The wording on this has been changed from "urging" more ambitious commitments to "requesting" them.

There’s now a furious debate among lawyers and diplomats about whether that represents a toughening or a softening, and whether the legal effect of the wording is different from its political effect.

One veteran of climate change conferences says what matters is what promises countries deliver next year. What if they don’t feel either the "urge" to strengthen targets or fulfil the "request" to do so?

A sentence about phasing out coal power has been watered down a bit. What matters is whether even this tweaked version survives into the final deal. If it does then that’s a powerful symbol of progress.

There are still major stumbling blocks on the finance to be provided by rich countries to poorer ones to help them cope with the effects of climate change now and in the future. Ministers are still trying to thrash out a compromise. Until that is completed we cannot get a complete understanding of the final deal.

The COP President Alok Sharma is conducting frantic shuttle diplomacy between countries. He will give an update at lunchtime. Then expect more draft texts, more meetings of ministers, and maybe even the intervention of world leaders.

And prepare for the ending of conference to be ambiguous rather than some kind of big bang: the biggest achievement could be for countries to do this all again next year.

David Shukman
Science editor, BBC News

Image source, Reuters

In an interview with me just now, the US’s climate envoy John Kerry sounded hopeful of securing a positive agreement.

He admits there are still issues to be settled - including on finance - but insists “this process puts us on track” to keep the rise in global temperatures to 1.5C.

Describing the diplomatic language being used at COP26 as “crazy”, he refuses to be drawn on whether “request” means something different to “urge” – the latest draft switches from one to the other.

Kerry defends the US-China announcement earlier this week, criticised by some as being too weak, saying “we can’t do this if the two big emitters can’t do it”.

Answering accusations that the richest nations still haven’t delivered the $100bn a year promised to the poorest nations, he blames “someone called Donald Trump” who had cut the funding.

And his prediction for when the conference will end? Tomorrow – maybe the early hours or even later. Clearly hard bargaining still lies ahead.

Image source, PA Media

One of the most prominent young climate activists in Glasgow says the delay to funding for helping poorer nations deal with the impacts of climate change shows that talk is not being backed up by action.

"The truth is commitments won't stop the suffering of people, or pledges will not stop the planet from warming, or promises will not bring about climate finance," Ugandan activist Vanessa Nakate tells the BBC.

The 25-year-old's comments come as diplomatic wrangling continues over the $100bn (around £74bn) funding developing nations have called for from richer nations to support them build resilience and deal with the economic and environmental damage that comes with a warming planet.

Speed of climate change is outpacing the politicspublished at 11:14 Greenwich Mean Time 12 November 2021

11:14 GMT 12 November 2021

Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News

The most recent draft agreement gets us on a track to limit global warming to lower than before this conference started.

Before we came to Glasgow, the scientific consensus was we were on a trajectory towards a 2.7C temperature rise by the end of the century. That upward curve has been squashed somewhat by various proposals and agreements, but not squashed enough; it has not brought us to this critical point of 1.5C.

Essentially we have accelerated that journey to reduce our emissions, but the physics of climate change are happening faster than agreements can be reached.

The reason we talk about 1.5C so much is because scientists agree that if we stick below that threshold, we limit the most dangerous impacts of climate change.

The difference between 1.5 and 2C is a world with some of our coral reefs remaining, and a world with no coral reefs. It is the difference between hundreds of millions of people facing the threat of extreme heat and droughts, and billions of people being put in that position.

But every single degree counts. It’s all about turning down that thermostat. The problem is this process goes slower than the pace at which the planet is warming up.

You've heard the world is going to get hotter and that extreme weather events will become more common in the future.

BBC weather presenter Sabrina Lee has put together a possible weather forecast in 2050, if global warming remains unchecked and the world is at least 1.5C warmer - as currently predicted.

The video really puts all of these complicated negotiations we've been telling you about in stark context - so have a watch.

Some important gains - but some losses toopublished at 10:55 Greenwich Mean Time 12 November 2021

10:55 GMT 12 November 2021

Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent in Glasgow

The latest draft of the COP26 decision text is stronger in many areas – but as in every negotiation, there are some losses too.

One small but important change is in relation to 1.5C – the text formerly said the world should aim to keep global temperatures under this threshold “by 2100”.

Some scientists saw this as allowing temperature rises to go well beyond 1.5 degrees as long as they were brought back down by the end of the century. This has been changed to simply make the goal limiting the temperature increase "to 1.5C".

The commitment of countries to come back next year with a new carbon cutting plan remains in the draft, although the language around it has been softened.

Perhaps of greater concern though is the inclusion of the phrase “taking into account different national circumstances.”

While this is being seen as a way of allowing vulnerable states and other low emitting countries to avoid having to update their plans, could it also be used by China to do the same thing?

Where the new document really gains strength is in relation to finance and loss and damage, two key issues for developing nations.

"Loss and damage" is basically about who pays for the impacts of climate change in the worst-affected countries and how it is paid - loans, grants, etc.

Money for adapting to the worst impacts of climate change will be doubled, and the baseline year will be 2021.

And there will be a new facility to help something called the Santiago Network get up and running.

This network will deal with paying for the impacts of climate change that go beyond adaptation (which means preparing for inevitable impacts with things like seawalls).

This is a first step on a road that will please the most vulnerable nations.

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We've been getting some reaction from environmental groups to that new draft text. On the whole they consider it a mixed bag with watering down of key areas but also some positive elements.

• Greenpeace says it needs to be "a lot, lot better" and warns the text on fossil fuels has been "critically weakened". But the group says there is some wording "worth holding on to" and urges negotiators to "seize the moment and agree something historic"
• The WWF says the revised draft has "gone backwards in key areas", highlighting the fossil fuels line. But it adds this is nevertheless "an important signal" and also welcomes the "short-term ratcheting-up of climate pledges by 2022"
• LSE's Grantham Institute on Climate Change says the text appears to deal with many major issues but says important aspects still need to be finalised. The institute says the text only requests rather than commits countries to delivering more ambitious pledges next year. It says the text is right to emphasise the need for rich countries to honour their pledge to deliver $100bn a year to help developing nations
• Oxfam says vital elements are missing and the "most glaring" is the lack of a mention of a finance plan for loss and damage proposed by developing countries. The charity says emission reduction targets have us "careering towards climate catastrophe" and says there needs to be an "unambiguous deal" committing countries to returning next year with improved targets

Prime Minister Boris Johnson should return to Glasgow to push negotiators on to a path "where we avoid climate catastrophe", Nicola Sturgeon has said.

The Scottish first minister said the conference needed "the political drive and determination" to improve the final agreement.

She said: "My message to the prime minister is come back here. Use your position as president of this Cop to really drive progress and push people as far as we can get them.

"Because every inch forward that this text takes is of course another inch towards getting the world on to a path where we avoid climate catastrophe, and nothing, literally nothing, is more important than that."

Image source, Jamie MacConnacher

Away from the conference, climate activists say they have deflated tyres on "luxury" vehicles parked in Glasgow to raise awareness of carbon emissions during COP26.

Around 60 SUVs in the city's upmarket West End were left with flyers that branded them a "climate violation".

Police Scotland said it was aware of the incidents and it had upped patrols in the area.

Pharmacist Jamie MacConnacher told BBC Radio Scotland that he discovered the two front tyres of his Land Rover had been flattened on Thursday morning.

"I don't think targeting individuals that have these vehicles is the right way to do it," he said. "They don't know what the reason for somebody having that car is."

MacConnacher said he would have an electric car but the "logistics" in the west end of Glasgow meant there was "nowhere to charge outside your flat so it just doesn't work for me".

The activist group Tyred of SUVs claimed responsibility for the action, saying "if 4x4 drivers were a nation, they'd be the seventh biggest polluters on the planet".

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Shadow energy secretary Ed Miliband is warning the target of limiting global warming to 1.5C is in "mortal peril".

However, the Labour politician welcomes the strengthening of the draft agreement in some areas

Miliband says the "unfortunate reality is that we are miles off where we need to be" in terms of halving global emissions this decade and limiting global warming.

"I'm afraid we're very much in the territory of living to fight another day. And that's what this text is about," he tells Radio 4's Today programme.

Image source, Getty Images

Half a degree might not sound like a lot when you’re relaxing in the sun, but it could have huge and potentially catastrophic effects on our global climate.

Right now the world is on average about 1.2C warmer than it was at the end of the 19th Century, with significant impacts all over the planet.

• If average global temperatures are kept below 1.5C above pre-industrial levels by 2100, ice sheets and glaciers will continue melting and sea levels will rise. But keeping the rise limited to that level would reduce levels of mass flooding and prevent millions of people from losing their homes to rising seas. It could also reduce the number of people struggling to access water by 50% as opposed to the situation with a 2C increase, according to Nasa.
• At 2C, life could become unbearable for many. All tropical coral reefs would be destroyed and flooding would worsen. Huge numbers of animals and plant species would lose their habitats and many more people would face extreme heat than with 1.5C.
• Warming of 3C upwards would have truly disastrous implications for our planet, with hundreds of millions of people displaced from their homes due to sea level rises.

Image source, Reuters

The draft text of the COP26 deal "falls short" of securing the aim of limiting warming to 1.5C, but is "stronger" than previous versions, a economist who specialises in climate change has said.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Lord Stern - who led the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change - describes the language as "more specific and more purposive" with a "greater sense of urgency".

He says: "We have to capitalise on that and move very strongly to put in place a new system during the coming year, which I hope the Egyptian presidency for COP27 a year from now will be able to turn into real commitments."

Asked if it meets his hopes for the summit, he says the text falls short of what he had hoped for "in the sense of really driving to 1.5C and tackling clean development".

He adds: "But actually I think it goes beyond where I thought it might be a few days ago when we saw the one before."

Image source, Getty Images

"Keeping 1.5C alive" – referring to the global warming target - has been a favourite phrase of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson during the past two weeks.

But there are growing fears that goal will not be achieved.

UN Secretary General António Guterres has said it is on "life support", while COP president Alok Sharma has said the window for reaching it is closing.

Scientists say limiting global temperature rises to 1.5C will help humanity avoid the worst climate impacts. This is compared with pre-industrial temperatures.

At Paris in 2015, world leaders pledged to try to keep the world from warming by more than between 1.5C to 2C through sweeping greenhouse gas emissions cuts.

Before the summit, projections were for a rise of 2.7C. Even with pledges made in Glasgow, scientists have calculated we are still headed for 2.4C of warming.

Image source, Getty Images

Talks to find a suitable compromise deal at COP26 are likely to run into the weekend, says one of the negotiators working in Glasgow.

Dr Christina Voigt from the University of Oslo, an expert in international environmental law and co-chair of the committee which oversees the implementation of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, says the “problems are still so prominent” that extra time is likely to be needed.

“My best bet is tomorrow lunchtime but nobody knows,” she tells the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme. “I spoke to someone from the UN Secretariat yesterday who was wondering how long these premises have been rented for.”

Dr Voight says she attended a “very late” negotiating session last night and the issues between countries on the final agreement and climate finance are still so great that “it will probably take several hours, if not days, to land it.”

COP summits are a “very male-dominated world”, Dr Voigt adds and the “very long time” negotiations take mitigates against more women being involved.

“Many women are not able to stay away from their families for that long,” she adds. “It is also a world where many diplomats come in, and that is also very male dominated. I hope that doesn’t affect the outcome, which is supposed to take into account the interests of all of us, and those who come after us.”

Image source, WFP/TSIORY ANDRIANTSOARANA

A minister from Madagascar - the Indian Ocean island deemed the first country suffering from climate change-induced famine - says “more positive engagement” is needed on the final day of COP26 to avoid a global climate catastrophe.

Dr Baomiavotse Vahinala Raharinirina, Madagascar's environment minister, told the Today programme countries such as hers are still waiting for a “more optimistic commitment” and “real engagement” from the world’s biggest polluters.

Tens of thousands of people in Madagascar are already suffering catastrophic levels of hunger and food insecurity after a four-year drought that has devastated isolated farming communities in the south of the country, leaving families to scavenge for insects to survive.

Although the government is building a pipeline to divert water to regions in dire need of it, Dr Raharinirina says finance from richer countries is urgently needed to help with infrastructure and new forms of “resilient agriculture” which can adapt to higher temperatures and less water.

“We are not the only one, Kenya is also living the same thing,” she adds. Projections for the next decade are “very negative”, she says, with large-scale climate migration already under way.

Image source, Getty Images

We'd forgive you if you were feeling a little confused reading this morning about a new "draft agreement". After all, you've probably heard about lots of agreements already announced at this summit.

That's because lots of countries have banded together to make announcements on what they are going to do in specific areas to reduce emissions.

The key thing to remember is that these agreements already announced have not involved all of the 196 countries represented in Glasgow.

The draft text this morning, however, does need to be approved by each and every party in a very formal process - which is why it's taking so long.

With that explanation out of the way - here are some of the other agreements we've had at COP26:

• The US and China agreed to work together this decade to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C
• More than 100 world leaders promised to end and reverse deforestation by 2030, including Brazil, home to the Amazon rainforest
• The US and the EU announced a global partnership to cut emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, by 2030
• More than 40 countries committed to move away from coal - but the world's biggest users such as China and the US did not sign up
• Some new pots of money were announced to help developing countries adapt to climate change and deal with the damage and loss it brings - but many say it's not enough
• A new alliance saw a small group of countries commit to setting a date to ending oil and gas use but the UK wasn't part of it

Image source, PA Media

The draft agreement published this morning has "inched forward" negotiations, according to Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

Speaking to the BBC's Adam Fleming, the SNP politician says the "upside" of the document is that it "clearly recognises" the 1.5C limit on global warming, as well as wording on compensation for nations who suffer "loss and damage" of climate change.

However, Sturgeon points out a lack of firm commitment on the $100bn (nearly £74bn at today's exchange rates) developing nations have called for in support.

"Although there is a recognition that 1.5 degrees is the goal, we're way off track to actually meet that," she adds.

"We're still on track for a world of 2.4 degrees global warming, for many parts of the world that is a death sentence."

Text feels like it's getting strongerpublished at 08:53 Greenwich Mean Time 12 November 2021

08:53 GMT 12 November 2021

Matt McGrath and Roger Harrabin
BBC environment correspondent and environment analyst reporting from Glasgow

There’s a general feeling that the text has mainly been strengthened overnight.

The wording over getting nations to make deeper emissions cuts next year is stronger. If this text gets through, ministers will be gathering again with more to offer.

There is more contrition over failing to deliver the promised $100bn finance to poor countries - the text expresses "deep regret".

The UK Presidency thought the clause on coal might not survive – but it has, with a small downward tweak.

This will make it very hard to finance new coal power stations.

Language on transparency is stronger – nations must be seen to be delivering on their promises.

The idea of compensating vulnerable nations for loss and damage due to extreme events is coming up the agenda.

One possible sticking point though is whether there is there enough on the need for trillions of dollars in the future to protect vulnerable nations