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An insider reveals what is going on behind the scenes of the climate conference

So far, all the preparation work we have done has been beating around the bush – not much that is substantial is happening yet. The homework has been done very well, but only on the issues that are not very substantive for this Cop, such as technical issues to do with the Paris agreement. We need to discuss now the issues which are most substantive: ambition, and climate finance.

Ambition means how much we are going to cut emissions, in line with the Paris agreement targets – and that means how much are developed countries and the biggest developing countries going to cut emissions. Since the IPCC report in August, this has become even more urgent.

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Despite all the analogies for this possibly terminal emergency, it is unlike anything that has come before

Writing in 2003, the American environmentalist Bill McKibben observed that although “some small percentage” of scientists, diplomats and activists had known for 15 years that the Earth was facing a disastrous change, their knowledge had almost completely failed to alarm anyone else.

It certainly alarmed McKibben: in June 1988, the scientist James Hansen testified to the US Congress that the world was warming rapidly and human behaviour was the primary cause – the first loud and unequivocal warning of the climate crisis to come – and before the next year was out, McKibben had published The End of Nature, the first book about climate change for a lay audience. But few others seemed particularly worried. “People think about ‘global warming’ in the way they think about ‘violence on television’ or ‘growing trade deficits’, as a marginal concern to them, if a concern at all,” he wrote in 2003. “Hardly anyone has fear in their guts.”

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A daily summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world.

Energy access is a big issue for businesses in Africa, but can the continent go green as well?

Pledges made at the UN have lifted hopes for the Glasgow summit, but some major questions remain.

Norwegian Air Shuttle has been fined NOK 400 million (€40 mln) for failing to comply under the EU ETS, despite data showing the airline had a sufficient supply of allowances for that year and managers taking home hefty bonuses this year.

A London-based fund with a focus on global carbon markets opened a RGGI CO2 Allowance Tracking System (COATS) account on Friday, with the new speculative account aligning with a broad trend over the past several months.

WCI compliance entities continued to add to their open short positions over the past week, while speculators’ holdings remained roughly static, according to US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data published Friday.

An environmental NGO-led initiative is currently demoing a methodology for scoring voluntary carbon market (VCM) project types and programmes, and the group hopes that its financial independence from voluntary emissions reduction (VER) issuances or services will help differentiate it from other entities also seeking to grade credits in the booming sector.

Birdwatching reminds Georgia Angus of the importance of appreciating our non-human co-inhabitants of this big spinning rock

• The Guardian/BirdLife Australia 2021 bird of the year poll begins on Monday

Over the past few years, my amateur bird watching has escalated into more of an obsession, one that occasionally pulls me out to more remote areas of Australia. Several months ago on one such trip, I had cause to think about what drew me to birds. On that particular day, I was walking in the Warrumbungles in New South Wales, trekking up a slope toward Mt Exmouth. I rounded a corner to spot an enormous wedge-tailed eagle perched on the ridge above me. It was an adult, with dark, near-black plumage, boxy shoulders and an immense beak. Its sheer mass was striking.

Related: Australian bird of the year 2021: nominate your favourite for the #BirdOfTheYear shortlist

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Head of Scotland’s natural heritage body says there is too much focus on reintroducing apex predators

Demands to reintroduce predators such as wolves and bears could significantly damage public support for rewilding the British countryside, a senior conservationist has said.

Francesca Osowska, chief executive of NatureScot, a government conservation agency, said rewilding could only succeed if it won support from people living in and managing the countryside, including farmers and Highland estate managers who are worried about losing their livelihoods.

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Alberta compliance offset prices ticked up this week after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau won re-election, but traders believe credit values are likely to hold steady until the province’s 2022 Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction (TIER) price is confirmed.

Thousands of protesters, including Greta Thunberg, rallied outside the German parliament in Berlin demanding stronger climate action from the government ahead of Sunday's national election. Friday's strike marks the return of the climate protests that in 2019 drew more than 6 million people on to the streets, before the Covid-19 pandemic largely halted mass gatherings and pushed much of the action online

• Global climate strike: thousands join coordinated action across world
• Fridays for Future global climate strike – in pictures
  

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A summary of legislative and regulatory action on carbon pricing, clean fuel standards, and clean energy at the US subnational and federal level this week, including developments in Oregon…

Rising EUA prices are playing a role in rising energy prices but have not had a material impact on European headline inflation to date, according to the European Central Bank. 

Rally to demand government action on climate crisis is first worldwide since start of pandemic

Hundreds of thousands of people in 99 countries have taken part in a coordinated global climate strike demanding urgent action to tackle the ecological crisis.

The strike on Friday, the first worldwide climate action since the coronavirus pandemic hit, is taking place weeks before the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, UK.

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Boris Johnson was in New York this week, trying to dodge awkward conversations and ignore domestic shortages

Is the government’s fabled Nudge Unit on a paddleboard somewhere in Crete? You have to ask, after Downing Street urged people not to panic buy petrol, a piece of behavioural science almost guaranteed to make people panic buy petrol. If only there’d been some kind of rehearsal event last year, when telling people not to fight over bog roll generated counterintuitive scenes of Andrex-fuelled violence in the supermarket aisles.

Having said all that, calls for the army to step in to assist with driving petrol tankers feel like dressing for the Global Britain we are, rather than the Global Britain we want to be. There’s a certain inevitability to a country without a foreign policy deploying highly trained soldiers to sit in traffic between BP forecourts. Is it OK to try and help with nation-building if the nation you’re building is your own? Either way, if you pass any troops gunning a tanker down one of our great highways and byways, make sure to say thank you for your service; or rather, for your service station.

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Disruptive protesters will face serious consequences, says judge in sentencing Extinction Rebellion activist

A judge has warned protesters who disrupt people’s lives they will face serious consequences, as he jailed a former Paralympic athlete who superglued himself to the roof of a British Airways plane.

Judge Gregory Perrins said the Extinction Rebellion activist James Brown, 56, who has been registered blind since birth, “cynically used” his disability and put his own life at risk to carry out the stunt at London City airport on 10 October 2019.

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EU Allowance prices advanced on Friday in line with a move up across the energy complex, while UKA buyers increased their bids above £60 for the first time in an increasingly tight British carbon market.

From turning CO2 into rock to capturing the breath of office workers, a growing number of companies think the answer is yes

Does the world need millions of machines sucking carbon dioxide directly out of the air to beat the climate crisis? There is a fast-growing number of companies that believe the answer is yes and that are deploying their first devices into the real world.

From turning CO2 into rock in Iceland, to capturing the breath of office workers, to “putting oil back underground”, their aim is to scale up rapidly and some have already sold their CO2 removal services to buyers including Bill Gates, Swiss Re, Shopify and Audi. Prices, however, are sky high – $600 (£440) per tonne and more. Given that humans emit about 36bn tonnes a year, that is problematic. .

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