Criticism from Minister for the Environment as second week of COP26 gets underway

Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Eamon Ryan, has criticised the COP26 climate conference saying there has not been enough progress made.

"There hasn't been enough progress to date either here or at the 25 preceding COPs. The non-governmental bodies were right to call that out at the marches at the weekend. So we’ve got to be impatient for more progress," he said.

He arrived at the conference in Glasgow this morning following a negative PCR test.

An initial test the Minister had taken on Friday returned a positive result, leading him to cancel his travel plans but a second test returned a negative result, allowing him to travel.

Speaking at the conference, the Green Party Leader said he was glad to be able to attend and hoped "momentum" could be built throughout the week towards a deal, adding that getting support for developing countries is an important part of the work he hoped to do this week.

This week will see, environment, energy and climate ministers focusing on reaching a conclusive agreement on measures to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5C degrees from pre-industrial levels.

Political negotiations will also seek to include financial support for poorer countries to cope with climate change.

Countries have been asked to close off as many issues as possible so that an agreement can be reached by the close of the summit on Friday but observers think that timetable is likely to slip, as 197 parties try to get consensus on several tricky areas around finance and emissions cuts.