On day 1 of COP26, a $100 billion reminder and a plea from indigenous peoples

The opening day of the COP26 conference in Glasgow brought out the divisions in the global community, even as they all sit down for that "last chance" to save the earth.

COP26 president Alok Sharma said that this event was "our last best hope to keep 1.5 degrees within reach". At the Paris Summit six years ago, the consensus was to restrict global temperatures at 2 degrees above the pre industrialised levels and preferably within 1.5 degrees. 

Sharma didn't mention 2 degrees but instead said that Glasgow must launch a decade of ever-increasing ambition. Increasing ambition is the mantra of the Global North even though developing countries like India insist that it is important to first meet existing commitments and not make new proclamations.

Abdulla Shahid, president of the UN's 76th General Assembly and leader of the Maldives, highlighted the unfulfilled promises, recalling the $100 billion pledged by the developed world and noted that it is still unclear how they will be used. 

He spoke on the need to focus on mitigation, something that island countries like his have been emphasising as they face the immediate threat of rising sea levels.

But the most impassioned speech was by a young woman from New Zealand, India Logan Riley, who said she was the same age as the negotiations. "I've grown up, graduated, fallen in love and out of it while the global North fishes with our future," she said.

Riley was representing the indigenous peoples and spoke about how the wildfires in Australia had created a haze in New Zealand last year. This is how the health of people in one part of the world are affected by actions and effects in another part.

Riley made an impassioned plea to listen to the voice of the indigenous people across the world, saying they still had solutions.