Will the COP26 climate talks "keep 1.5C alive"? That's the crucial question in Glasgow this week as the negotiations race to try and finalise a deal on Friday.

Right now that goal enshrined in the Paris Agreement - to hold global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius - is in jeopardy, with deep splits emerging about what would signal its demise.

"Overshoot is very likely unavoidable," warns Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. But Satyendra Prasad, Fiji's ambassador to the United Nations, emphasises that "beyond 1.5 we cannot imagine a future. It is not a number for negotiation."

Outside the talks, a throng of 120,000 protesters marched on Saturday, demanding swift and ambitious emissions cuts, and "climate justice" - including more climate finance to help poorer nations adapt to threats and grow cleanly, and new ways to deal with inevitable "loss and damage".

Health risks from climate change are also swiftly rising, doctors and health officials warned, noting one key way to curb them would be to cut what the International Monetary Fund says is $5.9 trillion in direct and indirect fossil fuel subsidies each year that make the polluting fuels artificially cheap.

"We need to stop spending money on the wrong things and start spending it on the right things," said Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, who heads the World Health Organization's climate and health unit - and cycled the 1,600 km to the Glasgow summit from Geneva.

But amid a flurry of pledges to cut fossil fuel expansion, slash deforestation and boost funding for climate action, there are plenty of bright spots at COP26.

The world, for instance, now has three nations that are not just carbon-neutral but carbon-negative, absorbing more emissions than they emit.

"We are showing the world what we can do if we have the political will," says Sonam Wangdi of Bhutan, one of the pioneering countries.

Young Kenyan entrepreneur Dysmus Kisilu is commercialising solar-powered cooling chests he developed, cutting food waste, boosting incomes and helping women get jobs in the country's growing solar industry.

And rules to regulate global carbon markets might be in the cards - though many aren't happy about expanded trading in carbon offsets, saying too many net-zero pledges are more "net" than zero.

Will we get a deal in Glasgow? Follow our coverage here as we find out.

See you next week!

Laurie

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