Image source, PA Media

We're now well into week two of the UK hosting COP26.

The summit, being staged in Glasgow, has heard from world leaders, delegates and activists looking at ways to bring climate change under control.

So, as a quick refresher, here's a breakdown of what COP26 is all about and how it could affect our lives.

How many countries are at COP26?

Up to 25,000 people from 200 countries have either been in Glasgow already or are expected at the summit, including world leaders, negotiators and journalists.

However, the Russian and Chinese presidents have been criticised for not coming.

Thousands of businesses and campaigners also go to attend events and hold protests.

When does COP26 finish?

The 26th Conference of the Parties opened in Glasgow on 31 October and will run until this Friday, 12 November.

What has been agreed at COP26?

Many countries set out plans to reduce emissions before the summit, but there has been a flurry of new announcements:

• Trees: More than 100 world leaders promised to tackle deforestation, which is important because trees can absorb vast amounts of CO2. There have been similar initiatives before, but this one's better funded
• Methane: More than 100 countries joined a scheme to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030. Big emitters China, Russia and India haven't joined
• Coal: More than 40 countries agreed to shift away from coal, the single biggest contributor to climate change. Some of the world's most coal-dependent countries, including Australia, India, China and the US, haven't signed up
• Money: 450 organisations controlling $130 trillion - around 40% of global private assets - agreed to back "clean" technology, such as renewable energy.

Read more: What is COP26 and why is it important?

About one billion people face crippling heat from a 2C rise in global temperatures, the UK's Met Office predicts.

It says a 4C rise could see nearly half of the world’s population living in areas potentially affected.

Dr Andy Hartley, Climate Impacts Lead at the Met Office, says it used a 32C temperature estimate to determine the level at which people would be defined as being "at extreme risk".

Image source, Met Office

"Vulnerable members of the population and those with physical outdoor jobs are at greater risk of adverse health effects," Hartley says.

"Currently, the metric is met in several locations, such as parts of India, but our analysis shows that with a rise of 4C, extreme heat risk could affect people in large swathes of most of the world’s continents.”

River flooding, risk of wildfire, drought, and food insecurity are also predicted in large areas should global temperatures rise.

Prof Richard Betts, who led some of the research, concludes: "The higher the level of warming, the more severe and widespread the risks to people’s lives."

Image source, Rolls-Royce

Tom Greatrex of the Nuclear Industry Association has been telling the BBC News Channel that nuclear power is "as green as wind and greener than solar" - and has a part to play in reducing carbon emissions.

He says combining sources of energy will help lead the UK to a low carbon future.

It comes as Rolls-Royce wins UK government funding for its project developing small nuclear reactors to generate electricity for up to a million homes.

Responding to claims that nuclear is not a solution for climate change, Greatrex says it can produce consistent supplies of electricity - allowing nuclear to mix with wind and solar and keep the power grid going.

On safety, Greatrex says most waste from nuclear power stations is heat with radioactive materials handled properly. "We're the only energy source that accounts for its waste," he says.

Image source, Reuters

We are in the final week of negotiations in Glasgow. The BBC asked more than a dozen climate scientists, negotiators and economists from around the world what they wanted to see agreed this week.

Among the priorities were concrete plans to cut emissions now.

Governments must agree to "cut emissions by half in the next 10 years", says Prof Mark Maslin, who researches the impact of humans on the environment at University College London.

Prof Martin Siegert, who researches changes in glaciers at Imperial College London, is among the scientists who said countries must sign up to move quicker in order to deliver on targets.

"We've got to get international consensus at least in principle around the notion of net zero by 2050," says Prof Siegert. "If that can be done at least in principle at Glasgow, it will be a major step forward."

• Read more: What scientists want from COP26

Tulip Mazumdar
Global Health Correspondent

Climate change means hotter days and heatwaves are happening more often, for longer and are having a greater impact on our health.

The latest data from the Lancet Countdown report, external suggests heat-related deaths in over-65s reached a record high in 2019 - with an estimated 345,000 deaths.

It said deaths were up in every region of the world in this vulnerable age group, except Europe.

"Our increasing exposure to hotter days and heatwaves is one of the most direct ways climate change is affecting our health,” says Sir Andy Haines, Professor of Public Health and Primary Care at LSHTM.

Extreme heat exposure can also affect babies developing in the womb increasing the risk of pre-term birth, low birth weight, and still birth.

The exact mechanism as to why this happens is still being researched, but it is thought to centre around blood flow between the placenta and the baby.

Early warning systems for heatwaves, ensuring communities know what to do when the hot weather hits, and people avoiding hard labour during the hottest parts of the days (although this is often not an option for many of the world’s poorest) are all strategies to try and reduce the impact on human health.

But in the end, there's one key answer – prevent our planet from warming much further than it already is.

Firefighter Craig Hope deals with "hundreds and hundreds" of grass fires across the south Wales valleys every year.

But he's noticed recently that they're changing - burning later into the year, getting larger and causing more damage.

As one of the UK's leading wildfire specialists he's often called on to travel overseas too and was deployed to Greece in August to help with the devastating blazes there.

He predicts parts of the UK could soon suffer similar scenes unless action is taken to adapt to the challenges of warming weather.

Mediterranean countries now experiencing severe issues "were having fires like we have 30 years ago", he said.

"We're in a position now where we need to act." The Fire Brigades Union has also warned its members are on the frontline of dealing with the effects of climate change and called for action at COP26.

Tulip Mazumdar
Global Health Correspondent

Just last week, the district of Burgenlandkreis in Germany reported its first ever case of West Nile virus. Although most people don't show any symptoms, for some it can cause serious neurological problems - and even death.

The virus - which can be transmitted between animals and humans via mosquitoes - was first identified in humans in the West Nile district of Uganda in 1937 and has been flourishing in tropical climates ever since. But there are increasing concerns that several diseases carried by mosquitoes are creeping into areas where they haven't been seen before – in part because of climate change.

Mosquitoes thrive in warm and humid conditions, and rainfall increases the number of outdoor breeding sites. The tropics and low-lying areas are ideal for the transmission of so-called vector-borne diseases, including malaria, dengue, chikungunya and Zika.

Image source, Getty Images

"The geographic expansion of the mosquitoes that transmit these diseases poses a threat to countries and regions having so far resisted local transmission." says Dr Rachel Lowe, Associate Professor and Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellow, who has been studying this for almost 15 years.

Scientists are warning that without action to reduce carbon emissions and limit global heating right now, billions more people will be at risk of mosquito-borne diseases , externalsuch as malaria and dengue.

Dr Lowe says: "The outlook for our children is very bleak indeed."

She adds we need to clean up our act for the generations to come.

Image source, Getty Images

The row over whether allowing the new Cambo oil field off the north east coast of Scotland could damage the UK's climate commitments has kept simmering away during COP26.

Now environmental groups are adding to the controversy by saying it could jeopardise hundreds of deep sea species and contribute to the climate crisis.

The Cambo oil field is situated approximately 125km (75 miles) to the west of the Shetland Islands in water depths of between 1,050m (about 3,500ft) and 1,100m (just over 3,600ft).

Campaigners are warning pipelines would cut through the Faroe-Shetland Sponge Belt, a UK Marine Protected Area.

The UK government says an environmental impact assessment will be carried out.

Read more on this latest development here.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a delegation of US lawmakers have arrived in Glasgow for COP26.

More than 20 Democrats from committees including science and climate change made the journey from Washington DC yesterday.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - a leading progressive voice on green issues - is among those to have traveled to the conference.

Image source, @AOC

The congresswoman shared behind-the-scenes photographs from the trip on her Instagram story.

Speaker Pelosi is expected to address the conference later.

Risks of greater weather disruption in the futurepublished at 08:56 Greenwich Mean Time 9 November 2021

08:56 GMT 9 November 2021

Simon King
BBC weather presenter and meteorologist

Image source, Getty Images

Climate projections from the UK Met Office show that by 2070, hot summers where the maximum temperature exceeds 30°C on consecutive days will become more frequent.

This is likely to add additional stresses to health and transport services that already struggle with extreme heat.

In fact, only this year, the Met Office started issuing weather warnings for "extreme heat", a clear indication by the organisation of the increase in impacts we’re likely to see in the future.

By 2070 rainfall in the UK could increase by as much as 35%, according to the Met Office.

This increase will vary across the seasons and locations.

But, generally speaking, flash flooding of urban areas in the summer months and river flooding in the winter will become more common.

Another concern of climate change for coastal areas of the UK will also come about from global sea level rise.

Melting of the Greenland ice sheet, glaciers and ocean thermal expansion – a result of the melting of Arctic sea ice – will have an impact.

Southern areas of the UK are more susceptible due to some geology of the UK but in London, for example, sea level is likely to increase by 0.3 to 1.15m depending on how much we curb emissions.

Significant coastal flooding down the eastern and south eastern coasts could increase, especially during stormy periods when strong winds and high tides will "add" to the higher sea level.

Image source, PA Media

The UK government’s chief scientific adviser says climate change is a far bigger problem than coronavirus and will kill more people than the pandemic if changes are not made now.

Sir Patrick Vallance says, like with Covid-19, science will play a key role in tackling the issue but it requires people to change their behaviour too.

He admitted the pandemic has been awful but whereas Covid may be a two to four year problem, the other was a 50 to 100 year one which could be "really, really damaging" if we "don’t get on top of it".

Sir Patrick stressed that though the role of science and technology was important, people shouldn’t rely on it alone to halt climate change.

“In the pandemic it took a concerted worldwide effort to come up with vaccines, drug treatments… understanding what behavioural change is necessary – the same is true for climate.”

Helen Briggs
Environment correspondent in Glasgow

Image source, PA Media

It’s hard to believe that Greta Thunberg was unknown at the time of the Paris Climate Accord, while other young climate activists – from Mitzi Jonelle Tan to Vanessa Nakate – were toddlers when the first COP took place in 1995.

Many of the new generation of campaigners making their voices heard in Glasgow have never known a world without global climate negotiations - and the threat of climate change.

Dr Alix Dietzel of the University of Bristol has been reflecting on how the debate’s changed since Paris, with young women increasingly taking the stage.

“To see young women taking space and using their voice is really encouraging for me as a climate justice scholar because it’s a new phenomenon,” she says. “They have a huge role to play and their voices are certainly very important."

They’re driven by fear around their futures and exasperation that negotiations aren’t moving quickly enough, she says. And their passion and courage is drawing in other young people who might want to play their own role in fighting against climate change.

Roger Harrabin
BBC environment analyst

The number of people affected by a potentially fatal combination of heat and humidity could increase nearly 15-fold with a 2C temperature rise, according to the UK Met Office.

It says the number of people in areas affected by extreme heat stress would rise from 68 million today to around one billion.

Outdoor workers would need regular rests. And people with heart and lung problems, the very young and the elderly would also be at risk from a combination of heat and humidity.

Our bodies sweat to cool off but, because water evaporates slower in more humid conditions, that causes our internal body temperature to rise.

In a separate study, the consultants McKinsey estimate that with just 1.5C of warming above pre-industrial levels by 2030, almost half of the world’s population could be exposed to one of a number of climate hazards in the next decade.

That could include heat stress, drought, flood, or water stress. A temperature rise of at least 2C is expected unless emissions are cut radically.

Image source, Reuters

We are inching closer to the end of the climate summit, but a final overarching deal is not yet in place. It will need all 197 countries to agree so there are some late nights ahead.

Behind the scenes, pairs of ministers will be discussing how to move forwards on the key sticking points remaining - they were asked on Monday to team up.

Events today will focus on the theme Gender, Science and Innovation.

Women and girls globally are disproportionately affected by climate change and female leaders will be sharing their successes in tackling climate change.

And experts will discuss how science can be used to find us solutions and monitor our changing world.

What to look out for

Change is what everyone wants from this summit - so watch today for analysis of whether promises made in Glasgow are moving the dial on global progress to curb climate change. We expect the independent group Climate Action Tracker to update their predictions on global temperature rises at 14:00 today.

The UK Met Office will say in a new report that a 2C rise in global temperatures will put 1 in 8 of us at risk of extreme heat stress which is potentially fatal.

How will it affect me?

Commitments made by governments in Glasgow could change how we live our lives, including on things like how we eat our homes, how we travel, and what we eat.

The aim of these talks is to ensure that the world does its utmost to keep global temperature rises under 1.5C this century. Failure to do that could see a rapid increase in dangerous climate impacts like floods, fires and heatwaves which will impact people all over the world, rich and poor alike.

Image source, Getty Images

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of developments at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow this Tuesday.

The inequalities that make women and girls more vulnerable to the effects of climate change are high on the agenda today.

The UK government is preparing to announce £165m to tackle the gender inequalities brought about through climate change.

Glasgow will also welcome Little Amal, the giant puppet of a 10-year-old Syrian refugee who has "walked" 8,000km (4,970 miles) from Syria over four months.

Meanwhile, negotiations have entered a critical phase ahead of this weekend's summit deadline.