Boris Johnson has opened the COP 26 World leaders summit in Glasgow today stating it won't solve climate change but can be the beginning of the end.

The Prime Minister spoke to other leaders and heads of state, including US President Joe Biden, who minutes earlier arrived at the SEC after his motorcade passed through the city.

Johnson said that Glasgow was the birthplace of the steam engine which he labelled the "doomsday machine".

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He said it was central to the industrial revolution and that a new revolution was needed.

He said we must phase out the use of cars with internal combustion engines, plant more trees and end the use of coal fired power stations.

Johnson said: “It was 250 years ago in Glasgow that James Watt came up with the machine powered by steam, produced by burning coal.

“Two hunderd and fifty years later, we’ve brought you back to the place the doomsday machine was invented.”

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The Prime Minsiter said he was in Copenhagen and Paris when promises were made to work towards net zero and limit warming to 1.5degrees.

He added: "All the promises will be nothing but blah,blah,blah, to coin a phrase, unless we get real."

Johnson said that the summit won’t solve climate change otherwise there wouldn’t have been 25 previous COPs.

He said: “We are covering the earth in a suffocating blanket of C02.

"The longer we fail to act, the worse it gets. Humanity has long since run down the clock on climate change.

"It’s one minute to midnight. If we don’t act today it will be too late for our children.”

In the hall was Prince Charles, in place of the Queen, Angela Merkel of Germany and Emanuel Macron of France.