By German Lopez

Good morning. International climate summits are imperfect, but they have led to real progress.

Degree shift

At the biggest international climate summit of the year, world leaders meeting over the past two weeks have been dogged by reports that countries are falling short of their commitments to combat climate change.

So what's the point of the annual gathering? In short, nations still strive to reach the goals they set even if they don't fully meet them. Rather than viewing these conferences as the final word, experts argue they are part of a process in which the world's most powerful people recommit to fighting climate change. Through this effort, humanity has made real, even if insufficient, progress against global warming.

"No one thing is going to turn this massive ship," said my colleague Lisa Friedman, who's covered 11 of the annual climate conferences, including this year's in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt. "There is no country on Earth that has gotten rich without burning fossil fuels. Governments are trying to create a whole new economy. And when you have these global conferences, it puts pressure on leaders to do something."

That potential for progress makes these conferences, convened by the United Nations, and their resulting pledges worth following. So today's newsletter will explain what the 2022 talks mean for the climate's future.

Mixed progress

Consider one issue that countries have debated at the climate summit: whether the world should continue to try to contain global average temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2100. That is the threshold that experts have said will best avoid the risk of catastrophe.

Global powers have made some progress toward that goal. Before 2015, the world was on track to warm by about four degrees Celsius. Today, it is on track for two to three degrees of warming. Even that small shift could prevent more frequent and severe wildfires, heat waves, floods and other disasters, potentially saving hundreds of thousands or millions of lives in the coming years.

World leaders have promised more. For the climate talks this year and last year, several countries stepped up their pledges to reduce planet-warming carbon emissions. The U.S., the largest historical emitter, and China, the current largest emitter, also agreed to restart discussions this week, potentially setting the world's two biggest powers on a path to more action.

Still, no big polluter is yet doing enough to keep warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (as these charts show). Some experts also argue the target would require such drastic action that it is now unrealistic, prompting renewed discussions about whether it should even be the goal.

The difference between 1.5 and two or three degrees might seem small. But because the climate is sensitive to change, the fractional difference really does matter — amounting to more or fewer climate disasters.

Uneven consequences

Developing countries will probably suffer the most from climate change because they have far fewer resources to adapt. Yet these countries have also contributed the least to the problem because they have burned much less fossil fuel.

Pakistan, for example, has emitted just 0.3 percent of the world's cumulative carbon emissions, compared to the U.S.'s 24.3 percent. Yet this year, it was hit by a heat wave that sent temperatures above 120 degrees Fahrenheit and floods that inundated a third of the country, both of which, scientists say, were made more likely by climate change.

The disparity led wealthy nations to promise $100 billion a year in climate-related funding by 2020. But in 2020, they sent only about $83 billion (which might be an overestimate, Oxfam found). And now world leaders are debating whether they should commit to more, although those talks had not made much progress through this morning.

The bottom line

The talks demonstrate the kind of mixed story that comes up again and again at these climate conferences: Countries have made progress and promised to do more, but they also have fallen short of previous goals.

"It is imperfect," Lisa said. "This is a place where lawyers can fight for hours about the placement of a comma. It can be maddening. But it's the only forum that exists for this purpose. And slowly — maybe too slowly — it is having an impact."

More climate news

• How does extreme heat affect the body? The Times visited two cities transformed by climate change — Kuwait City and Basra, Iraq — to document what billions of people may soon experience.
• When climate talks reach an impasse, it's time to bring in "The Closer."

THE LATEST NEWS

• Nancy Pelosi, the first female House speaker, said she would step down as Democratic leader after two decades but remain in Congress.
• She shepherded big legislative achievements through Congress, including the Affordable Care Act and President Biden's climate and tax bill.
• "The hour has come for a new generation to lead," Pelosi said. Hakeem Jeffries of New York is poised to become House Democrats' next leader.
• From impeaching Donald Trump twice to donning sunglasses outside the White House, these photos capture her time as speaker.

• Hundreds of Twitter employees seem to have decided to leave the company after an ultimatum from Elon Musk.
• The new chief executive of the crypto exchange FTX, who helped manage Enron after its collapse, said he had never seen "such a complete failure of corporate control."

• Kari Lake, an election-denying Republican, suggested she planned to contest her defeat in the Arizona governor's race.
• Representative Lauren Boebert's re-election bid in Colorado is nearing a recount. Four other House races remain uncalled.

• A Dutch court convicted three men with ties to Russian security services over the downing of a passenger jet over Ukraine in 2014 that killed 298 people and foreshadowed Russia's invasion.
• The suspect in a racist massacre at a Buffalo supermarket this year agreed to plead guilty in the deaths of 10 people.
• South Korean officials missed crucial chances to prevent the Halloween crowd crush in Seoul that killed more than 150 people.
• For the second time in less than two months, Alabama canceled the execution of an inmate after issues with inserting an IV line.
• An early-season storm could bring "crippling snowfall" to Buffalo through the weekend.
• Ticketmaster canceled its planned public sale of Taylor Swift tickets after a presale caused chaos.

America's teachers have reached a breaking point, Agnes Walton and Nic Pollock argue in this video.

A psychological fixture to those who abhor him, an embodiment of his supporters' hopes: Trump has become a fetish object, Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah writes.

MORNING READS

Hospitals as museums: Bringing world-class art, and wonder, to mental health patients.

Science fiction: We're living in the world that Octavia Butler envisioned.

Modern Love: Who's afraid of a lovely fern?

Lives Lived: Michael Gerson served as George W. Bush's chief speechwriter. Later, as a columnist for The Washington Post, he was among Trump's earliest Republican critics. Gerson died at 58.

SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC

World Cup: In an abrupt reversal, Qatar is banning alcohol sales at stadiums, The Times's Tariq Panja reports.

M.V.P. winners: The Yankees' Aaron Judge and the Cardinals' Paul Goldschmidt are your American League and National League M.V.P.s.

N.F.L. game moved: A snowstorm coming to Buffalo forced the Bills and Browns to move Sunday's game to Detroit.

ARTS AND IDEAS

The woman behind the glam

For two decades, Karen O, the frontwoman of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, has brought theatrical flair to indie rock with her eye-catching outfits — tattered prom dresses, studded jumpsuits, spandex-and-shower-curtain creations. A hidden force is behind her looks: the designer Christian Joy.

The two met in 2000 at an East Village shop where Joy worked and Karen O, then a film student, would visit. Though Joy had no formal training in fashion, Karen O asked her friend to design an outfit for her. They continued working together as the band grew from playing little rock clubs to headlining festivals. "She's got this gift to create happiness," Karen O said. "What I wear onstage and how I present myself brings a lot of joy."

Ends soon: Save on a subscription to New York Times Cooking.

Now's the perfect time to subscribe to Cooking at a special price. Enjoy recipes curated by our editors and get inspired to try something new every day.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

No recipe needed — make these barbecued shrimp as you like them.

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How well did you keep up with the headlines this week?

The hosts reacted to Pelosi's announcement.

The pangram from yesterday's Spelling Bee was implant. Here is today's puzzle.

Here's today's Mini Crossword, and a clue: Tic-___-toe (three letters).

And here's today's Wordle. After, use our bot to get better.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — German

P.S. Steven Ginsberg will become the executive editor of The Athletic, the sports website owned by The Times.

Here's today's front page.

"The Daily" is about crypto.

Matthew Cullen, Lauren Hard, Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

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