The next question comes from the New York Times. Can you tell us what the sticking points are on loss and damage?

On loss and damage - the issue of what reparations should be paid by richer countries to poorer countries for the damage caused by climate change - Sharma says "there is further work that is going on".

Archie Young, the UK's lead negotiator, adds: "Let's see how the cover decisions develop. But our draft was the first potential cover decisions that actually had its own section on loss and damage. It had been referenced in a couple before.

"But I think that really highlighted the political imperative we are putting on this issue."

Sharma adds that the the issue has been included shows the "movement" that has been seen in the loss and damage discussion.

"I think there has been a change in the way that all parties are approaching this which is something I very much welcome."

The New York Times also asks a second question: Has the US-China deal had any impact in the actual negotiations?

Sharma says he very much welcomed the agreement between the world's two biggest emitters. "I think that's good news," he says, adding that he hopes the spirit of co-operation will drive forward the talks in Glasgow.

The UK's Sunday Times asks the first question, with the journalist saying they're being told that the best we can hope for from COP26 is a road map to the next year. The journalist asks: Has this conference failed?

"What we've always said is what we want coming out of COP26 is to be able to say with credibility is we have kept 1.5C in reach," replies Sharma.

"Whilst the window on keeping 1.5 within reach is closing, it is still possible to get there.

"What you will have seen in the draft cover decision so far is setting out how we think parties should return and look again at the commitments they have made. Ultimately, it is going to be up to parties to come forward with consensus on the cover decisions.

"We will be circulating another round of the draft cover decisions later on tonight, overnight, but I've been very clear... we are urging ambition," he says.

The COP president adds that he has been told by groups and by individual parties, "they want to see ambition in the outcome of COP26".

Sharma says his ministerial co-facilitators, other ministers and negotiators are "rolling up their sleeves" and working hard to find solutions to some of the most intractable issues, which have so far evaded countries for six years.

He says he will be holding meetings later today with all parties on matters relating to finance and Article 6, which is about carbon markets and how countries balance their fossil fuel use.

He says negotiations on finance "really need to accelerate and they need to accelerate now".

Sharma says a further iteration of texts across a range of issues will be published overnight.

He concludes by saying: "We still have a monumental challenge ahead of us, but collectively we have no choice but to rise to that challenge and strain every sinew to achieve a timely outcome that we can all be proud of. Because ultimately this outcome, whatever it is, will belong to all of us."

Alok Sharma, the president of COP26, has started speaking at a press conference from the summit in Glasgow.

He begins by marking Armistice Day in the UK, before moving onto the negotiations.

He says detailed discussions have continued across a range of issues over the last 24 hours, and has held a range of bilateral meetings.

A tranche of draft decision text was published early this morning - including on adaptation, loss and damage, and article six, he says.

Sharma says yesterday talks on the global goal on adaptation were concluded - and he hopes the forward work programme will be adopted.

But whilst we have made progress, says Sharma - "we are not there yet on the most critical issues".

"There is still a lot more work to be done", he says, and COP26 is due to finish tomorrow.

"Time is running out," he adds.

Alok Sharma - the UK government minister who as summit president is leading COP26 - has started giving his press conference.

Stay with us to hear what he has to say.

Alok Sharma, the president of COP26, is due to hold a press conference shortly.

He's due up at 15:00 GMT, and we'll bring you all the latest when it starts.

Negotiators are in their final 36 hours of talks to reach an agreement.

Was climate change behind Asia's big chill?published at 14:40 Greenwich Mean Time 11 November 2021

14:40 GMT 11 November 2021

Susan Powell
BBC Meteorologist

Image source, Getty Images

Our next question about climate change and weather comes from Jamie, 29, in Gloucestershire, England: "It has been said that one of the reasons for the increase in gas prices this year is because of extreme cold weather in Asia last winter. To what extent was this extreme weather driven by climate change?"

It almost seems like a contradiction that in a warming world there would be increases in extreme cold, but there is increasing scientific evidence the two may be linked. And it’s all to do with what’s happening high up in the atmosphere.

Every winter above the North Pole, high in the stratosphere at about 10 to 30 miles (16-48km) above the Earth’s surface, a band of strong westerly winds form, known as the Arctic polar vortex. In the core of the circulation of strong winds is a pool of extremely cold air.

Disruptions in the polar vortex set off a chain of events, leading to disruptions in the polar jet stream. This in turn leads to weather patterns getting locked in, or blocked. And it can also mean colder air is displaced to areas not normally affected by such extremes.

Satellite data from the past four decades has confirmed profound changes in Arctic conditions due to global warming. There still is ongoing debate about whether the changes in sea ice levels are disrupting the atmospheric circulation, or if the unusual atmospheric patterns come first.

Read more about the connection between climate change and extreme weather

Image source, Reuters

The UK government's COP26 spokeswoman, Allegra Stratton, says that the issue of finance "is what needs a push" in these last days of talks.

Climate finance - or the amount of money that rich countries give to the developing world to help it practically cope with climate change - is one of the big battles of the summit. Rich countries had previously promised to pay $100bn (£72bn) a year by 2020 but that pledge failed and has been pushed back to 2023.

"Alok Sharma and the prime minister have said it was disappointing that it's being hit in 2023," says Stratton - and the aim is to "get the maximum possible on finance".

Asked on Radio 4's World at One programme whether the issue of finance could be resolved, she says: "Don't know. We've got 36 hours, perhaps a bit more."

Stratton was also asked what is happening behind the scenes. "Tremendous pressure," she says. "High ambition is being asked for by Alok Sharma and our negotiators.

"We are pushing for the highest ambition. There are items in the text that are high ambition.

"But the thing about this COP, this is the first crank of the ratchet. This is the moment of truth. Paris was fantastic and a beautiful historic moment but it was an agreement we would come back with evidence that all countries wanted to bring down carbon emissions.

"In the next 36 hours we will reveal whether we've all got what it takes".

Pressed on whether any agreement will come by 18:00 GMT tomorrow, she says that's Sharma's aim.

Are climate change and global warming the same thing?published at 14:27 Greenwich Mean Time 11 November 2021

14:27 GMT 11 November 2021

Susan Powell
BBC Meteorologist

Image source, AFP

Our next question about climate change and weather comes from Lubna, 24, in Karachi, Pakistan: "Can the terms climate change and global warming be used interchangeably?"

These terms are sometimes used interchangeably but "global warming" is just a single aspect of climate change.

Global warming refers only to the rising of our global temperatures.

Climate change encompasses global warming and all the additional changes our planet is experiencing – like accelerating ice melt, shifts in the seasons and more extreme weather events including more intense storms, rainfall and flooding.

Read our really simple guide to climate change

What's the climate link to flooding?published at 14:20 Greenwich Mean Time 11 November 2021

14:20 GMT 11 November 2021

Susan Powell
BBC Meteorologist

Image source, AFP

Our next question about climate change and weather comes from Angela who asks: "How does climate change cause floods?"

Flooding results from very intense rainfall, sustained rainfall, repeated rainfall events or a combination of all three.

Rising global temperatures essentially indicate the Earth’s atmosphere now holds more energy, in the form of heat.

Air at higher temperatures can hold more moisture - about 7% more per 1°C of warming. Warmer ocean waters favour more rapid evaporation. Put simply, a warmer atmosphere produces more intense weather systems more readily.

In addition, there is gathering evidence that climate change may result in more "blocked" weather patterns across the globe. Blocking refers to an atmospheric setup where jet streams - the steering mechanism for weather patterns - effectively get stuck in one place over a period of time and feed in intense weather systems to the same areas, one after the other.

Read about the causes of flash flooding

How is climate change affecting the seasons?published at 14:17 Greenwich Mean Time 11 November 2021

14:17 GMT 11 November 2021

Susan Powell
BBC Meteorologist

Image source, Getty Images

The first of our questions about climate change and weather comes from Gemma-Kirstie, 36, in Hove, England, who asks: "How will our weather seasons be affected by climate change? Will they be longer or shorter or have more extreme weather?"

In the mid-latitudes, where we are in the UK, we are used to the year being broken into four seasons. You may have already noticed that this just doesn’t seem so obvious now and you would be right.

Things you may have noticed are plants emerging earlier in the year as the start of spring advances, and frosts beginning later. Scientists are already studying the changing of the seasons, and climate change has already resulted in, for example, a lengthening of the growing seasons expected in summer, and a shortening of winter, spring and autumn.

Even with no further increase in the current warming rate, some projections see summer lasting significantly longer by 2100, and winter shortening correspondingly.

In terms of the day-to-day weather, we are set to experience more frequent heatwaves and higher-intensity storms.

Your questions on weather answeredpublished at 14:10 Greenwich Mean Time 11 November 2021

14:10 GMT 11 November 2021

We asked you what you want to know about how climate change affects weather, and you sent in some great questions.

Did climate change drive the extreme cold weather in Asia last winter? Are the seasons changing because of global warming?

Stay with us and BBC Meteorologist Susan Powell will be giving the answers to these and other questions shortly.

Analysis: What issues remain in reaching agreement?published at 14:00 Greenwich Mean Time 11 November 2021

14:00 GMT 11 November 2021

Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent

Image source, EPA

As we have been reporting, negotiations are continuing at COP26 on a final climate agreement that needs to be signed off by nearly 200 countries. Here our environment correspondent Matt McGrath looks at the issues that remain.

It could be quite a long list. You can break them into two kind of areas.

One is the ongoing technical discussions about the key issues that have been hanging over this conference for a number of years, which are about Article Six - that's the way carbon markets are regulated.

There's ongoing difficult discussions there about a range of things - how carbon credits are carried over, how should the proceeds from carbon markets be shared among other countries? Those are big issues.

But apart from these technical issues, there are two main issues that the conference is really concerned about

That is the scale of ambition, the amount and the speed of carbon cuts that countries will agree to, and also the question of finance. It was the first thing COP26 president Alok Sharma listed - that is obviously the grease in the wheels, that is what will make this conference work and if they cannot get substantial progress on the issue of finance then all other things may fall by the wayside.

So far, the language on the draft decision on key issues has been quite strong. Whether it remains that way after a day of negotiations... we'll have to wait and see.

Image source, Reuters

We’ve been watching the launch of the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (with the catchy acronym BOGA).

Led by Denmark and Costa Rica, its members will set a date by when they will stop producing these fossil fuels - and they will stop giving permits for extraction or exploration of new oil and gas.

So who’s signed up?

The UK, US and Canada have not, but some of their nations and regions have. That includes Wales, California and Quebec.

Scotland is also considering joining soon, Denmark's Climate minister Dan Jørgensen says.

The full cast list are: Costa Rica, Denmark, France, Greenland, Ireland, Québec, Sweden and Wales.

New Zealand, California and Italy have also signed up as supporters.

“This is the first step. There is no future for oil and gas in a 1.5C world. The fossil era must come to an end,” says Dan Jørgensen.

Some of these countries, in particular Greenland, have large reserves of unexplored fossil fuels.

But without big producers like Russia, US and Saudi Arabia, the alliance isn’t yet the showstopper that will end oil and gas for good.

David Shukman
Science editor, BBC News

Image source, Getty Images

It felt like stepping into a parallel universe when I went to my first COP – in Montreal back in 2005.

Climate conferences had been running for only 10 years by then but they’d already developed a language unintelligible to outsiders.

And the event seemed isolated and politically irrelevant – it was mainly environment ministers and officials talking among themselves, and in no great rush.

That’s partly because the big oil-producing countries were using last-minute objections to try to slow everything down.

And after negotiations that dragged through the night, I spotted the UK’s Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett with tears in her eyes – from relief or exhaustion, I’m not sure.

All that was achieved was an agreement to keep talking and I wondered if anyone would notice.

They are now - the world’s only forum for dealing with the climate is attracting the attention of everyone from youth campaigners to faith groups to big businesses.

The process is as confusing as ever but it does have momentum.

As the UN COP26 summit draws to a close, three activists have come together in Glasgow to answer questions on climate change, their hopes for the conference and their advice for dealing with eco-anxiety.

Mitzi Jonelle Tan is a 24-year-old activist from Philippines, Gaston Tenembaum, 20, is an activist on environmental issues based in Argentina, Dominique Palmer, 22, is a climate justice activist from the UK.

We've been keeping a close eye on what China, the US, the EU, India and Russia are doing with regard to the climate crisis - that's because those five are responsible for most of the world's carbon emissions.

Here's what the top two, China and the US, are pledging - for the others, head here.

China:

• Its carbon emissions are still rising, but China says they will peak before 2030 and promises to be carbon neutral before 2060
• It did not join a pledge made by more than 100 countries to reduce methane by 30% by 2030 - but it has agreed to develop a plan to address methane as part of talks with the US

US:

• More than four-fifths of US energy comes from fossil fuels, but it is promising to be carbon neutral by 2050
• It has pledged to cut CO2 by at least 50% of 2005 level by 2030

But the research group Climate Action Tracker rates both China and the US' policies and actions as "insufficient" to be consistent with the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global temperature rises to no more than 1.5C.

As we heard from COP26 President Alok Sharma, climate finance remains one of the key sticking points in negotiations between the various nations at the summit.

But why is the issue so important?

Developing countries tend to pollute less per head of population and are not responsible for most emissions in the past, yet they experience some of the worst effects of climate change.

They need money to help reduce their emissions and to cope with climate change. This could mean more solar panels in countries that depend on energy from coal, as well as flood defence systems.

There will also be a battle over compensation for developing countries affected by climate change.

Wealthy countries previously pledged $100bn (£720m) a year to help poorer nations by 2020 but that target was missed, so richer countries are being asked to commit more money.

Image source, Getty Images

There's a big announcement expected in the next hour from Denmark and Costa Rica, who are launching a new coalition called the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance.

The alliance is a group of governments and stakeholders - such as businesses in the industry - who are working together to speed up the end of oil and gas.

They want to phase out oil and gas production, and move up the issue on the agenda.

It's expected that later we'll hear which other countries, firms and organisations have signed up to the coalition.

Asked yesterday whether the UK would support the plan, UK PM Boris Johnson said: "We'll look at what Denmark and Costa Rica are proposing, and I would certainly encourage everybody to move beyond coal and beyond hydrocarbons."

Denmark is one of the largest European oil and gas producers but last year banned new North Sea oil and gas exploration and committed to ending its existing production by 2050. Meanwhile, Costa Rica has never extracted oil, but is considering a bill to permanently ban fossil fuel exploration to ensure no future governments do so.

Paul Rincon
Science editor, BBC News website

On Wednesday, the US and China released a joint declaration on how they plan to work together to curb climate change. Included in the declaration is a package of measures on tackling emissions of methane.

Methane (CH4) is a potent planet-warming gas - many times more powerful than carbon dioxide (CO2). A recent UN report suggested it had contributed about 0.5C of global warming to date - although that figure includes a fair bit of uncertainty.

However, there's also less of it: methane is about 200 times less concentrated in the atmosphere than CO2. And it doesn't hang around for as long, with a lifetime of around 12 years. CO2 lingers for more than a century, which means it builds up in a way CH4 doesn't.

So while the main focus remains on CO2, tackling methane is seen as a relatively easy win for controlling climate change over the near-term and keeping within the 1.5C limit.

Image source, Reuters

Substantial methane emissions come from fossil fuel production, including from the practices of directly releasing (venting) or burning off (flaring) natural gas at oil wells. These emissions could be tackled through technical fixes and other measures.

Another source is landfill, so changing the way our rubbish is disposed of could make a difference. Emissions from farming can be addressed through better management of manure and the installation of methane digesters which collect the gas.

Under Wednesday's declaration, the US has produced an action plan on how it plans to tackle the problem, externaland China will produce its own by COP27 next year. The two biggest emitters - at odds on numerous issues - collaborating on this problem represents a bold development, especially given that China refused to sign an earlier methane pledge in Glasgow.

But as with so many things at the summit, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And only time will tell whether this declaration can be described as a big win, or just more hot air.