Hi, I'm Erica Pandy, and welcome to Axios Recap, where we dig into one big story.

It's Monday, November 1st, and we're focused on COP 26.

Yesterday kicked off COP26, the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference.

More than 100 world leaders are meeting in Glasgow, and this year's gathering is more crucial

than ever.

Scientists are warning that time is running out to avoid more devastating climate change impacts

over the coming decades.

Is this the last chance to make a dent in emissions?

In a moment, Axios' climate and energy reporter Andrew Friedman

on what COP26 could actually mean for the climate. And we're joined now by Andrew Friedman,

Axios' climate and energy reporter, who has been reporting on the UN Climate Change Conference.

Hey, Andrew. Hey there. So Andrew, get me up to speed here. What is the history behind COP 26?

It's the 26th meeting of the conference of the parties to the UN Framework Convention on

Climate Change. So that's an agreement that every country signed on to in 1992.

And since then, we've been doing these annual summits to, like, ratchet up global

action as the science has become clearer. Has it been the same attendees at every conference?

It's delegates who specialize in environmental negotiations, but now every single cop is unique. Every cop is unique because

some of them, like this one, draw more than 100 world leaders. Some of them, only environment

ministers. Some of them, no political level leaders at all, just negotiators. So it depends what's on the table.

And has it been the same countries represented since the beginning, or has that changed?

That only changed briefly for periods of time. Pretty much every country in the world has sent

a delegation every time. But the United States, after we led the negotiation of the

...