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Today being youth day at COP26 is appropriate because Fridays have become synonymous with protest action by young people around the world.

The Fridays for Future movement has seen children all around the world walk out of school each Friday to highlight the threat of climate change.

The movement took off in 2018 when Greta Thunberg began standing outside the Swedish parliament with a protest sign that read: "School strike for climate".

On some protest days, hundreds of thousands have taken part by walking out of their schools around the world.

Today's march has been organised by Fridays for Future activists - and both Thunberg and Vanessa Nakate are due to speak later.

Young climate activists have now begun marching through Glasgow to call for action from world leaders - we'll bring you the latest from the protest.

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Image source, PA Media

Image source, EPA

Image source, PA Media

Organisers of today's youth climate march in Glasgow say they are not interested in "causing destruction" or "overthrowing the government" but are intent on getting their message across to world leaders.

Skye, 18, tells BBC News the number of young people who have "woken up and are voicing opinions" within the Fridays for Future, external movement shows the strength of feeling about climate change.

"We really hope world leaders will see that and think ‘Wow, young people are really passionate about this. We need to be passionate about this.'"

Friday's march is a "completely positive" occasion, she adds. "We are not here to cause destruction and destroy buildings and overthrow the government. We are here to spread our message and show how much passion we are willing to put into this movement.”

Another organiser, Anna, says they have made clear in discussions with police "what our needs are and what we want from them".

With the Glasgow climate summit in full swing, the BBC has been speaking to young people around the world impacted by climate change. Wahyu Nurhana is a 21-year-old living in Semarang in Indonesia.

She says: "What I feel about the climate in Indonesia recently is the weather is very unstable. We're now entering the rainy season but I feel that the weather is still very hot and very windy.

"It has a huge impact on my parents' jobs. They are farmers and unpredictable weather can have a massive impact on their crops.

"Because the weather is so hot and dry, it's very difficult to find enough water for the plants. I think there are still a lot of people who aren't aware of this issue.

"My hope for the future is I hope everyone will be more aware that we need to protect our environment because if we aren't protecting our environment - we will lose so much.

"If those changes really happen, I think so many people will feel happier because we can coexist with nature.

"I believe by protecting and loving the environment we will get the same love back from nature."

Image source, Reuters

Some young climate activists in Glasgow today are missing a day of school to attend the protest.

Headteacher Graham Frost, from Robert Ferguson Primary School in Carlisle, tells the BBC it is "inevitable" that young people want to speak out on climate change and schools should help facilitate this.

"I think there's a growing recognition amongst school leaders that we have to make that possible for them in a way that is safe," he says, adding that his 17-year-old daughter is at the march with the authorisation of her school.

Frost says schools have a "duty and responsibility" on this as "young people have such a stake in the future".

Today, young people are making their voices heard and explaining how climate change is affecting them - so what is the UK government doing to suppoort them?

Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi has set out a series of measures aimed at further embedding climate change in the English schools curriculum.

The plans include a Climate Leaders award recognising efforts to protect the environment.

Pupils will be able to progress through different levels of the award - bronze, silver and gold - in a similar way to the Duke of Edinburgh's Award, which includes volunteering and extracurricular activities.

Staff will also be supported to teach children about nature and their impact on the world through a "model science curriculum", to be in place by 2023.

Climate change is already taught in science and geography lessons in England as part of the curriculum.

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After thousands of young people have marched through Glasgow later, they'll hear speeches from activists including campaigners Greta Thunberg and Vanessa Nakate. We've already taken a look at who Greta is, so here's more on Vanessa.

Ugandan activist Vanessa, 24, lives in Kampala, the country's capital and largest city. She says she began reading about the struggles people in her community faced in 2018.

"I realised that the climate crisis was just one of those challenges. It was the greatest threat facing the lives of the people," she says.

"It really surprised me because this is not something I heard about in school. And yet the impacts that I was finding out about, I had already seen unfolding in my country but I couldn't make the connection to the climate crisis."

In January 2019, inspired by Greta Thunberg, Vanessa began her own strike in front of the Ugandan parliament building, demanding they take action over the climate crisis.

Earlier this week, Greta criticised the media, external for "erasing" Vanessa from pictures of their meeting with Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

Image source, Reuters

Young people are converging on Glasgow today to join a youth climate march which will see thousands muster around 11:00 GMT at Kelvingrove Park in the west of the city.

Organisers have confirmed that Greta Thunberg will be at the front of the march when it leaves from the Prince of Wales Bridge around 11:30.

She will be surrounded by a continuous bubble of marshals walking ahead to make sure there is no scrum along the route.

The march will head along Argyle Street through the Finnieston area, proceeding along St Vincent Street before protestors arrive in George Square around 13:00, where speakers will include Thunberg, Vanessa Nakate and other global youth activists.

Police have warned people travelling in or around Glasgow to prepare for delays and "potential changes required at short notice for operational purposes".

Maisie Goodwin
BBC Young Reporter

Hi, I'm Maisie! I'm a recent maths graduate and I've always had a bit of an interest in the climate but it has grown significantly over the past few years as the environment has become a more widely talked about issue.

Two years ago I was diagnosed with Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON), a genetic disease that causes central vision loss, and this is what led me to create my report on packaging as a BBC Young Reporter.

With more and more companies changing their products and packaging to become more sustainable, I wanted to look at the impact this is having to those with disabilities. How accessible are these products and could we be doing more to give everyone the opportunity to do their bit?

You can watch my report below.

Our reporters have been out in Glasgow speaking to young protesters - who are gathering already for the march that takes place in about an hour or so.

Eighteen-year-olds Theo and Cole from Greta Thunberg's Fridays for Future movement are among those in the crowd.

Theo says the group is expecting more than 20,000 people to join the march today and they are there "to hold our leaders to account".

"We’re going to be doing a lot of shouting because they [world leaders] clearly aren’t listening at all," he tells the BBC.

Cole adds: "The faith of young people in leaders has never been lower and rightfully so."

He says it is "not just the youth here today, everyone is protesting the action on climate", adding: "We have stepped up… someone has to save the planet."

Helen Briggs

Some here are voicing concern that headline-grabbing announcements are diverting attention away from the real purpose of the COP.

Climate policy expert, Mohammad Adow, says the UN is in danger of “drowning” in “an announcement blitz”.

“These announcements may generate headlines but assessing their true worth is hugely difficult, especially at speed during a COP meeting. They are eye candy but the sugar rush they provide are empty calories."

Meanwhile, scientists are pointing out that suggestions the pledges made at Glasgow could bend the curve on rising temperatures to below 2C might be wide of the mark.

Piers Forster of the University of Leeds says a lot of the pledges are already in national targets, so there is a lot of double counting. “They are also all long term and not really bending the curve in the next decade,” he says.

According to Dr Joeri Rogelj of Imperial College London, even when examined “through the rosiest of glasses”, these promises are insufficient to meet the Paris climate agreement goal of limiting warming to well below 2C. “And just to be sure, promises of politicians on a big stage are not very often a good indication of where reality is at!”

Last night, ahead of the day dedicated to youth at COP26, the Prince of Wales revealed he held a meeting with Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate, who has been attending the climate conference in Glasgow.

Prince Charles said they spoke “about the role young people can play in ensuring the health of the planet for future generations”.

The Ugandan activist has been a leader in a big campaign to save Congo's rainforest, which is facing massive deforestation.

Last year she made headlines around the world after she was cropped out of a photograph taken with her white peers, including Greta Thunberg.

Both Nakate and Thunberg are due to speak at the youth march later today.

When we think about our actions impacting the climate, we tend to focus on offline events, such as how we get around and what we eat.

But what about our digital habits?

BBC Young Reporter Ikenna Hurike visited Manchester's Museum of Science and Industry to find out how our online habits can impact the climate.

BBC Minute
Mora Morrison

A feature of COP26 has been the number of smaller countries, often those with the lowest carbon footprint, highlighting the impact of climate change on their very existence.

Bernard Ewekia, 25, is the only youth delegate to make it to COP26 from Tuvalu, a tiny island nation in the Pacific Ocean midway between Hawaii and Australia.

Tuvalu is still in lockdown but Bernard says he fought his way here, with the help of an Australian plane, to tell the world: "We in Tuvalu exist."

"Every day we see climate change," he tells BBC Minute. "Whenever high tides come it fills up our lands.

"We love to play in the airfield every evening and when high tides come, we have no option but to play in places filled with sea water. It looks amazing and pretty, but we are drowning.’

As we head towards the end of the first week of COP26, much of what we've heard from people so far are questions on how they can make a difference.

Recycling is one form of action people can take - but it can be confusing. Have you ever paused with your hand over the recycling bin, wondering whether to drop in that cheese-splattered pizza box? You could be a wishcycler - keen to recycle more stuff and do your bit for the planet, but confused about the best way to go about it.

Wishcycling, or aspirational recycling, describes the well-intentioned, but often unfounded belief, that something is recyclable, even though it's not. BBC environment correspondent Helen Briggs followed five items that cause recycling confusion on their journey through a recycling plant to help you think before you throw.

You can also take a look at our graphic below on five items that we often get wrong when it comes to recycling.

We'll hear from campaigner Greta Thunberg later, when she speaks to thousands of activists on the streets of Glasgow. But who is the Swedish teenager?

She has gone from a 15-year-old protesting alone outside the Swedish parliament to one of the world’s most recognised faces.

The campaigner first staged a "School Strike for Climate" in August 2018. Thunberg, who is now 18, has since been named Time Magazine's Person of the Year in 2019 and has become the face of global climate activism.

Image source, Getty Images

She wants people in power across the world to act with more urgency in tackling harmful emissions.

"You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words," she told a UN climate summit in New York in 2019, one of her most famous speeches.

But Thunberg is just one of thousands of young environmental activists across the world. Young people from India to Kenya to the US have been demanding greater action on issues including climate change, deforestation and plastic pollution.

Image source, Getty Images

Thunberg’s movement became known as Fridays for Future, which has led to global co-ordinated school strikes to raise awareness about the impact of climate change.

The most recent demonstrations took place last month in more than 1,500 locations worldwide, starting with small protests in the Philippines and Bangladesh, and spreading to European cities including Warsaw, Turin and Berlin.

Image source, Getty Images

On the day COP26 is dedicated to youth and thousands of youngsters prepare to take part in a climate protest in Glasgow, the issue of "eco-anxiety" has been highlighted as a significant issue.

Alison Anderson, a professor of sociology at Plymouth University, says recent research shows "a high degree of what we now call eco-anxiety”.

Two-thirds of young people between 16 and 25 are feeling “very worried” or “extremely worried” about climate change, Anderson tells BBC Radio Scotland.

“Many of them are feeling guilty, helpless, very worried about having children,” she says. "This is clearly having an effect on their mental health, but getting together with other young people gives them a sense of urgency and empowerment.”

Adelaide Charlier, a 20-year-old inspired to set up Belgium’s Youth for Climate movement, says the more informed she became on climate change, the more she found it “a sad story" and "really hard” to take in.

“What does get young people out of eco-anxiety is getting together and mobilising and feeling we can act and do something about it," she says. "So a movement like Fridays for Future is a really good thing.”

Jon Kelly
BBC Stories

Image source, Levy UK + Ireland

Every day at COP26, we speak to people on the ground about their day and the challenges they face.

Lorna Wilson, who is in charge of catering at COP26, describes the unique challenges of drawing up the summit’s menu:

"Every single product line has been looked at individually: where did it come from, can we validate its source?

"It goes right the way down to which tea bags we use, which wine we're purchasing - to uniforms, pens and pencils. We've had to ask, where do we get these from?

"We have a website that tells you the stories behind all the menu items - where the haggis is made, where in Aberdeen the fish batter was produced, and so on. I've met the farmer we get the cauliflowers from, face to face."

Read more from Lorna here.

While much of the world's focus is currently on Glasgow, one hundred miles or so north of the city, in the Cairngorms National Park, people are troubled after the UK's longest-lasting patch of snow disappeared for what observers say is only the eighth time in three centuries.

They tell BBC Young Reporter Sofia their fears for what less snow and fewer snow days means for both life in the town of Aviemore - and the planet.

Image source, PA Media

A little later today, women from the UK, India, Brazil, South Africa and Poland will deliver a letter to high-level delegates in Glasgow to call on leaders to stop financing all new fossil fuel projects for the sake of children’s health.

Environmentalist Bhavreen Kandari, from Warrior Mums, will be among the group. She tells BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that children around the world are suffering with air pollution.

She says that is the reason why parents from across the globe have gathered to “give a stern message to global leaders that we just can’t go on”.

World Health Organization advocate Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, whose daughter Ella was the first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as the cause of death on their death certificate, says she does not believe it to be a big ask to stop the financing of all new fossil fuel projects "when children are dying".

“If you know your child is going to die and you can do something to save your child you would do it," she says.