Much bolder commitments needed to tackle climate challenge - UK's Sharma says

MILAN (Reuters) - Now is the time for leaders of the largest economies and the biggest greenhouse gas emitters to make much bolder commitments to cut emissions, Alok Sharma, the president of the upcoming COP26 climate conference, said on Tuesday.

Speaking at the start of the Youth4Climate meeting in Milan, Italy, Sharma said the response of world leaders has not come anywhere close to the scale of the climate challenge.

The U.N. COP26 conference in Glasgow in November aims to secure more ambitious climate action from the nearly 200 countries who signed the 2015 Paris Agreement and agreed to try to limit human-caused global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Milan is hosting the Youth4Climate event with youth activists from around the world and a subsequent pre-COP26 meeting, at which climate and energy ministers will decide proposals to send for consideration at the November summit in Glasgow, Scotland.

(Reporting by Stephen Jewkes and Giulio Piovaccari, writing by Agnieszka Flak, editing by Cristina Carlevaro)