COP26 updates: Countries officially adopt Glasgow Climate Pact

Carbon emissions are on track to return to pre-COVID levels after dropping by 5.4% in 2020, according to the 16th annual Global Carbon Budget prepared by the Global Carbon Project.

Researchers from University of Exeter, University of East Anglia, CICERO and Stanford University found that coal and gas emissions are set to grow more in 2021 than they fell in 2020.

While all major emitters – U.S., China, India and the EU27 – are seeing a rise in emissions by a minimum of 4% in 2021, India and China are set to beat their respective 2019 emission levels.

“Investments in the green economy in post-COVID recovery plans of some countries have been insufficient so far, on their own, to avoid a substantial return close to pre-COVID emissions,” study leader Pierre Friedlingstein, who holds a chair in Mathematical Modelling of the Climate System at the University of Exeter, said.

Looking ahead, Friedlingstein said, “To achieve net-zero by 2050, we must cut emissions every year by an amount comparable to that seen during COVID.”

Hollywood and fashion royalty met with actual royalty at COP26. 

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio and designer Stella McCartney were seen chatting with Britain’s Prince Charles at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow, Scotland, on Wednesday. 

Prince Charles was at the event to award the "Terra Carta Seal" to corporate leaders. The award recognizes companies that have documented plans to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by half by 2035 or achieve net-zero by 2050.

DiCaprio has long been an environmental activist, and McCartney strives to use sustainable materials for her fashion line. The garden at Highgrove House, Prince Charles’ home in Gloucestershire, England, was one of the first to reincorporate organic practices in the 1980s.

The Maldives, an archipelago made up of over 1,100 coral islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean, is the lowest lying nation in the world. Therefore, sea level rise caused by global climate change is an existential threat to the island nation.

"Our islands are slowly being inundated by the sea, one by one," Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, the president of the Maldives, told the U.N. Climate Change Conference, or COP26, earlier this week. "If we do not reverse this trend, the Maldives will cease to exist by the end of this century."

At the current rate of global warming, almost 80% of the Maldives could become uninhabitable by 2050, according to multiple reports from NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey.

Read more here.

The United Nations has announced a number of ambitious emissions reduction targets as part of its Sports for Climate Action Framework.

The goals include reaching net zero by 2040 and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030.

Organizations such as the International Olympic Committee, FIFA, Athletics Kenya, BBC Sport, the Premier League, Formula E and Munster Rugby have signed up for the new targets. 

Moreover, signatories will submit plans on how to implement these targets as well as report on overall progress each year.  

"Four years since we launched the Sports for Climate Action Framework, more than 280 sports organizations have committed to the overarching objectives of aligning sport with the goals of the Paris Agreement," U.N. Climate Change Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa said Wednesday.

-ABC News’ Stephanie Ebbs