Glasgow. The world must move from aspiration to action to limit rising global temperatures by taking concrete steps on phasing out coal, accelerating the transition to electric vehicles, and halting deforestation, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson will tell leaders at COP26 on Monday.

He will also pledge to increase the UK’s own climate finance by £1 billion by 2025 during the opening ceremony of the summit in Glasgow, according to a statement from the UK Embassy in Jakarta.

These actions will make the biggest difference in reducing emissions this decade on the world’s path to net-zero and keeping alive the global aim of limiting rising temperatures to 1.5C under the Paris Agreement, it said. 

The UK doubled its International Climate Finance commitment to £11.6 billion over five years in 2019, and the Prime Minister’s new announcement today would take this to a world-leading £12.6 billion if the economy grows as forecast.

“Humanity has long since run down the clock on climate change. It’s one minute to midnight and we need to act now,” Johnson is expected to tell the summit. 

One minute to midnight references the "Doomsday clock" – the closer to midnight being the closer we are to a man-made global catastrophe.

“If we don’t get serious about climate change today, it will be too late for our children to do so tomorrow.”

He is also expected to call on world leaders to “move from talk and debate and discussion to concerted, real-world action on coal, cars, cash, and trees”. 

The COP26 climate summit comes six years after the Paris Agreement was signed by over 190 countries to limit rising global temperatures to well below 2C with a view of reaching 1.5C. 

According to the UN, global temperatures are currently set to rise to 2.7C.  

 “We are at a make or break moment for our planet. A 2.7 degree global average temperature rise would be a disaster for the world and for Indonesia,” British Ambassador to Indonesia Owen Jenkins said. 

“The COP26 Climate Change summit in Glasgow is our last and best chance to limit that rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Still not good, but a best achievable, least bad scenario. Indonesia has a huge part to play, and I know it has come to Glasgow ready to continue its climate leadership,” he added.