Cop26: 1bn people will suffer extreme heat at just 2C heating – day nine live

“The world as designed by men has destroyed many things,” Cop26 delegates have been told, as leaders and campaigners warned that the climate crisis could not be ended without the empowerment of women.

Women and girls around the world suffer disproportionately from the impacts of climate breakdown, as they are on average poorer, less educated and more dependent on subsistence farming. A UN report found 80% of those displaced by the climate emergency are women.

The focus on gender equality on Tuesday saw indigenous women and politicians including Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the US House of Representatives, demand increased investment.

Angelica Ponce, executive director of the Plurinational Authority for Mother Earth in Bolivia, said: “The world as designed by men has destroyed many things. The world should begin thinking like women. If it was designed by a woman, it would end violence against women and children.

“We want to be in the corridors of power and take part in decisions at international level to end this struggle of climate justice,” she said. “As indigenous women, we live day-by-day the cruel reality of climate change in our land.”

Meanwhile, somebody has graffitied “blood money” on another bank in Glasgow, according to a Glasgow Times reporter.

A reminder: It’s Gender Day today at Cop26.

And with that, the UK government pledged to fund GBP165m to help “progress gender equality while tackling climate change”.

WaterAid, a charity working on supplying clean water and decent toilets, has lauded the announcement but said it is not enough.

Kathryn Pharr, Senior Policy Advisor on International Climate Action, WaterAid, said:

While we welcome the UK government’s pledge, sadly it is just a drop in the ocean of funding needed to support the millions of women and girls across the globe who are bearing the brunt of the climate crisis.

More severe floods and droughts will only increase this injustice as women and girls are forced to walk further to collect water for their households, miss out on going to school, getting jobs and fulfilling their potential.

This announcement needs to be an urgent rallying cry to other governments to follow suit and truly equip women and girls to be leaders in the fight against climate change, rather than victims, and to put gender equality at the heart of climate action.

Maybe that was too easy a test for liveblog readers.

Cop-watchers will know that, over the years, there have been several Cop presidents who are women. In fact, the president of the last summit, Cop25, was a woman: Chile’s Carolina Schmidt.

BUT there are big gaps in diversity and inclusiveness at Cop, not just this year but all years.

Last year, a campaign was launched to address that. Called SHEChangesClimate, its goal is to ensure “all delegations, for all climate negotiations, have at least a 50% representation of diverse women at their top levels”.

You can read more about the campaign here.

A little test for people who have closely watched Cop over the years.

We’ve been getting a lot of press releases here at the Guardian during Cop26. One just landed in a colleague’s inbox that caught her eye. To save the marketing agency embarrassment, I won’t mention who sent it, but have a read of the below and try to guess what might be wrong:

“Leading voices from the business world have joined with environmental and social activists, scientists and politicians to urge that the president of Cop27 is a woman. If successful, this would be the first woman president in Cop history.”

Only a tiny fraction of Cop26 delegates have tested positive for Covid-19, largely due to the “exceptional” measures taken to limit infections, the Scottish government has said.

John Swinney, the deputy first minister, told MSPs on Tuesday only 0.1% of delegates with passes for the summit’s ‘blue zone’ tested positive by Friday last week, a period covering the first week of the event. He said a full update would follow when the summit ends.

Delegates have to complete and register daily lateral flow tests; produce evidence of their tests results; show vaccination certificates and observe distancing at events. Those measures led to many of the lengthy queues and delays getting into the conference zone last week.

Swinney said the event, which could lead to Covid infection rates spiking again, was being monitored very closely.

“Covid-19 has presented significant challenges to staging this unique event. The scale and worldwide draw of Cop26 poses risk of spread of Covid-19 both within delegates and to or from the local population of Scotland and the UK.

“A comprehensive and exceptional package of mitigation measures has been in place to ensure the event is delivered safely, helping to protect the welfare of everyone involved and the wider community.”

The speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, has just been (you guessed it) speaking at an event attended by the press and US congresspeople.

“This is all about the children,” she says. “Leaving a world where they can be healthy, more secure, and more in reach of their fulfilment.”

We have a live feed above.

It’s a glorious sunny afternoon outside the summit venue as the band strikes up for an impromptu ceilidh (Scottish or Irish social gathering) organised by Extinction Rebellion Scotland.

The ever-patient caller takes the international crowd through the steps to the Gay Gordons dance just as the Welsh Kitchen, which appears at XR events across the city, sets up. Today it’s cottage pie on the menu.

(Stepping away from the press conference, which just ended, a bit of political drama from our Scotland editor, Severin Carrell)

The Greens leader of Brighton and Hove city council has apologised for “a major failure of judgment” after flying from London to Glasgow, where he lambasted the UK government for ineffective action on climate change at the Cop26 summit.

Phelim MacCafferty, who also co-chairs the council’s carbon neutrality working group, admitted he took the flight instead of going by train on Friday, arguing he was worried about warnings that rail travellers faced delays that day.

The next day, MacCafferty represented Brighton and Hove at an event to present the Glasgow declaration on climate, attended by Greta Thunberg, and was at the mass march through the city on Saturday. Caroline Lucas, the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, travelled to Glasgow by train.

He had been challenged about his travel by the Brighton Argus, a local paper. “This decision to fly was a major failure of my judgment which goes against my political group’s pledges and principles and I unreservedly apologise,” he told the paper.

“I reluctantly took this very difficult decision because I was concerned about the unreliability of the rail network following the well-publicised difficulties experienced by many people wanting to travel by train to Glasgow the week before, when trains were cancelled.

“I was concerned that this would happen again and I felt it was important not to miss the opportunity to attend the important presentation on behalf of the city, lobby world leaders and share with others the innovative work taking place in Brighton and Hove.”

Scientists have warned that beyond 1.5C, some of the damage to the earth’s climate will become irreversible.

The CAT analysts also found a chasm between what countries have said they will do on greenhouse gas emissions and their plans in reality. If current policies and measures are taken into account, rather than just goals, heating would rise to 2.7C, based on the CAT analysis.

Read the full report here:

This might come as a shock to avid readers. That is because just last week, other organisations published more optimistic forecasts of 1.9C or 1.8C.

However, those estimates were based on long-term goals set out by countries including India, the world’s third-biggest emitter, which is aiming for net-zero emissions by 2070.

By contrast, the CAT based its analysis on countries’ short-term goals for the next decade.

Bill Hare, the chief executive of Climate Analytics, one of the organisations behind CAT, explains why long-term goals are misleading:

We are concerned that some countries are trying to portray [Cop26] as if the 1.5C limit is nearly in the bag. But it’s not, it’s very far from it, and they are downplaying the need to get short-term targets for 2030 in line with 1.5C.

Niklas Hohne, an author of the report, said:

Countries’ long-term intentions are good, but their short-term implementation is inadequate.

In other words, we can make promises for the future, but we need to make drastic and immediate changes in the next few years to avoid disaster.

In twenty minutes, what could be the biggest news of the day is going to drop: the results of the Climate Action Tracker.

What’s that?

• The CAT is the world’s most respected climate analysis coalition, providing independent reports to policymakers since 2009.

What does it do?

• It tracks and monitors government climate action and, since 2015, measures it against the globally agreed Paris Agreement aims.

What are those?

• For the first time, rich and poor countries joined together in a legally binding treaty pledging to hold global heating to well below 2C, the scientifically-advised limit of safety, with an aspiration not to breach 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

What will CAT say this year?

• You will find out shortly.

I’m Oliver Holmes, taking over the blog. I’ll be with you for the rest of the day. If you see anything you think deserves a spot on here, email me at: oliver.holmes@theguardian.com