British Prime Minister Boris Johnson attends a meeting. File photo

Glasgow’s COP26 climate summit begins in earnest today with world leaders facing calls for urgent action to limit dangerous temperature rises.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will tell them that humanity has “long since run down the clock on climate change” and must act now to tackle the crisis, with the planet now at “one minute to midnight”.

He is pledging to put an extra £1bn into a climate crisis fund for poor nations — but only if the UK economy bounces back from Covid.

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The cash would fund programmes for developing nations to cope with the devastating impact of climate change, helping to protect nature and supporting a transition to clean and green energy.

In an interview with the BBC, Johnson would not confirm whether he now regarded himself as an environmentalist, but insisted he was "not the black sheep of my family" on green issues. Boris Johnson's wife Carrie, his father Stanley and his brother Leo are all very keen environmentalists, the BBC said.

Speaking this morning, Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, said success at the climate summit was still “touch and go”.

China’s president, Xi Jinping, will address the climate conference in the form of a written statement on Monday, according to an official schedule, but will not be attending, according to the Independent.

Russia’s Vladimir Putin will also be absent and Turkey’s Tayyip Erdogan flew home from the G20 meeting in Rome rather than take part.

Meanwhile climate activist Greta Thunberg says she wasn’t even invited to join the conference by the organisers.

Monday will see the world leaders summit with statements by heads of state and government and separate meetings at a morning event on forests and land use and afternoon discussion about accelerating clean technology innovation and deployment.