Alok Sharma was hardly a household name in Britain, let alone the rest of the world, when appointed to lead the UN climate talks now reaching a climax in Glasgow.

But with the planet's future at stake, the COP26 president has had to emerge from the shadows to stand in a blindingly bright spotlight over the past fortnight, trying to reconcile seemingly irreconcilable demands.

Reflecting on his own role, the self-effacing former UK business secretary said on Thursday: "People sometimes describe me as 'No Drama Sharma'."

The nickname is modelled on the former US president, Barack Obama. But Sharma will have been hoping for a better outcome than "No Drama Obama".

Then in his first year in the White House, the inexperienced Obama suffered an infamous bust-up with the Chinese at the 2009 COP in Copenhagen.

Sharma certainly lacks the vaulting oratory of Obama or his own boss, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who appointed him to steer the COP26 process alongside the UN in February 2020.

That came just as the coronavirus pandemic began to sweep the world, but the 54-year-old politician has nonetheless kept up a gruelling globetrotting schedule in the months leading up to Glasgow.

Sharma has sought to forge personal relations with smaller island states but also with more influential economies by visiting China and his native country of India -- two of the biggest holdouts against an ambitious deal.

He has won some praise from delegates for his balanced leadership.

Yet all along, Sharma has been dogged by criticism that Johnson should have appointed a bigger hitter to the pivotal climate job.

"I think Alok Sharma has done fine, but I think the wider UK government has been at fault because I think they didn't embrace the seriousness of the degree of difficulty early enough," Britain's former Labour leader Ed Miliband told AFP.

Taking aim at Johnson directly, he said: "You can't compensate in two weeks for not having done the work for two years."

- Corporate to climate -

Sharma initially combined the role of COP26 president with the position of Johnson's cabinet secretary for business, energy and industrial strategy.

The dual-hatted approach attracted criticism that Johnson was not taking the COP process seriously enough, and Sharma eventually took on that role full-time in January this year.

Sharma was born in the Taj Mahal city of Agra in 1967 and his parents moved to Reading, a commuter-belt town west of London, five years later.

Like his better known colleague, finance minister Rishi Sunak, Sharma has taken the MPs' oath of allegiance over the Hindu Bhagavad Gita.

Johnny Luk, a Conservative activist of Chinese heritage, recounted how he "received quite a lot of racial abuse" when he stood unsuccessfully for parliament in 2019.

"Alok reached out personally to express his support to me, which I care about deeply," he told The Daily Telegraph when Sharma was made COP26 president.

"He is one of the nicest guys I know in politics, he is razor sharp, he cares about specific issues, not just soundbites," Luk added.

There was little to suggest a future role as climate guru in Sharma's path from university at Salford, in northwest England, to his training as an accountant and then jobs in corporate finance.

Urged by his Swedish wife to consider a career in politics, he became an MP for Johnson's Conservatives in 2010, representing a seat in affluent Reading.

Sharma held a variety of junior government positions before being given the cabinet-level job of international development minister when Johnson took office in July 2019.

He was one of the few "Remainer" politicians kept on by Johnson, after campaigning for Britain to stay in the EU, but was judged as a safe pair of hands and went on to stay true to the prime minister's hardline vision of Brexit.

Thunberg denounces COP26 deal, UN chief warns 'catastrophe' close
Paris (AFP) Nov 14, 2021 - UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned of an impending "climate catastrophe", while environmental campaigner Greta Thunberg dismissed Saturday's COP26 climate conference deal as "blah, blah, blah".

And even those who welcomed the deal in Glasgow said a huge amount of work remained to be done.

Guterres acknowledged the shortcomings of the agreement, in a statement following the deal reached on Saturday evening at the Glasgow conference.

"The #COP26 outcome is a compromise, reflecting the interests, contradictions and state of political will in the world today," he tweeted.

"It's an important step, but it's not enough."

"Our fragile planet is hanging by a thread", he warned, adding "we are still knocking on the door of climate catastrophe."

In a follow-up tweet, the UN chief sent a message to "young people, indigenous communities, women leaders, all those leading on #ClimateAction."

"I know you might be disappointed. But we're in the fight of our lives & this fight must be won."

Thunberg, arguably the world's best known environmental campaigner, was more blunt in her assessment.

"The #COP26 is over," she tweeted. "Here's a brief summary: Blah, blah, blah.

"But the real work continues outside these halls. And we will never give up, ever."

During the conference, Thunberg and other activists had denounced the way it was playing out, arguing that world leaders had failed to match their words with real action.

- 'Hard work ahead' -

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson remained relatively upbeat.

"There is still a huge amount more to do in the coming years," Johnson said.

"But today's agreement is a big step forward and, critically, we have the first ever international agreement to phase down coal and a roadmap to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees."

A European Commission statement said the deal kept the targets of the 2015 Paris climate agreement alive, "giving us a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius".

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said delegates to the conference made progress on commitments to cut back on dangerous emissions, and on raising $100 billion a year to help developing and vulnerable countries.

"But there will be no time to relax: there is still hard work ahead," she added.

During the final negotiations, China and India insisted that language on fossil fuels be weakened in the final summit decision text. In recent days, the Australian government has vowed to sell coal for decades to come.

But Kevin Rudd, Australia's former prime minister, now the president of the Asia Society, remained hopeful.

"While the official text might have stopped short of agreeing to phase out coal, the statements made by world leaders in Glasgow leave no doubt that coal is on its way to being consigned to history."

For Britain's COP26 president Alok Sharma, the long, drawn-out negotiations had taken a toll.

"I apologise for the way this process has unfolded, said Sharma, as the final deal was clinched. "I am deeply sorry," he added, before banging down his gavel.

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Scientists appeal for immediate climate action at COP26
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