COP26: What's at stake as thousands of people descend on Scotland for climate summit

World leaders will gather in Glasgow, Scotland, from Oct. 31 to Nov. 12 for the 26th annual United Nations conference on climate change.

COP26 is where the messy details and unfulfilled promises of the Paris agreement will get hashed out. The world has already warmed roughly 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 Fahrenheit) since the late 19th century, meaning there isn’t much wiggle room left to halt global warming at 1.5 Celsius — the most ambitious goal set in Paris. If the world rapidly phases out fossil fuels, massively ramps up renewable energy and enhances the natural systems such as forests that can pull carbon from the air, scientists say, the Earth’s warming will stabilize.

A recent U.N. analysis found that even if nations met their current promises, the globe would still be on pace to experience an average temperature rise of 2.7 Celsius by the end of the century a path U.N. Secretary General António Guterres has described as “catastrophic.” Read moreSubscribe to The Washington Post on YouTube