GLASGOW — World leaders have yet to finish clearing their throats on COP26’s main stage of the Scottish Event Campus, and so far the meeting, touted as the most important climate conference of our time, is a pastiche of juxtapositions. Hundreds of private jets have arrived in the city, carrying celebrities and billionaire corporates: the same echelon that pushed up accommodation fees and drove many attendees—including youth activists and some government delegates—to Edinburgh and other adjacent towns.

Now, as disparate parties gather in Scotland, a palpable tension is underscored by a joint sense of urgency. Here are some of the key developments as COP26 gets underway:

Canada to crack down on oil and gas sector: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reiterated commitments to placing hard emissions caps on Canada’s heavy-carbon emitters in a bid to reach net-zero greenhouse gases in the sector by mid-century. “That’s no small task for a major oil-and-gas-producing country,” Trudeau said in his opening speech in Glasgow Monday. “It’s a big step that’s absolutely necessary.”

The prime minister invoked Lytton, B.C., in his remarks, the village that was scorched this summer amid a heat dome that saw temperatures reach a deadly 49.6 C, the hottest ever recorded in Canada. “How many more signs do we need? This is our time to step up—and step up together,” he said.

There are no details of the emissions plan yet, despite the Liberals promising such a cap in the latest election campaign. New Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson sent a letter requesting advice from the government’s net-zero advisory body Monday on how to proceed. Critics urged the government to curb production directly, not just the sector’s emissions.

A call for a global carbon price: Trudeau was among a string of leaders to advocate for a global price on carbon. Angela Merkel, in Glasgow for her last COP as German chancellor, also touted global carbon pricing as the way to encourage the clean-energy transition. Prince Charles made a similar endorsement. Carbon pricing is expected to be a hot topic in negotiations on climate financing, a central theme of this year’s conference.

Setting the tone: U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson implored a James Bond metaphor in his opening-ceremony speech. He likened the climate crisis to the fictional character, “strapped to a doomsday device, desperately trying to work out which coloured wire to pull to turn it off, while a red digital clock ticks down remorselessly to a detonation that will end human life as we know it.”

Storm watch on opening day: Before leaders took the stage, high winds and rains toppled trees onto train tracks and power lines Sunday, leaving stranded hundreds of attendees travelling to Glasgow by rail. Some observers painted the weather event as a sign from Mother Nature that, depending on the perspective, either justified the conference or mocked it.

Meanwhile, a message from Greta Thunberg: The Swedish activist rallied outside the conference centre, telling young protesters that COP attendees are just “politicians and people in power pretending to take our future seriously…. Change is not going to come from inside there. That is not leadership; this is leadership,” she said pointing to the group.