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The global technology and climate elite gathered a two big shindigs in Europe this week.

Our columnists check in the latest from Glasgow and Lisbon. Tune in.

Welcome to the views room. I'm Rob Cox, the editor of Breaking Views, the financial commentary arm of the mighty Reuters

news.

I'm coming to you from Glasgow, Scotland, this week.

I'm here with my colleague George Hay for the COP 26, the Big UN Climate Conference.

It's been a heady few days as world leaders and business

execs arrive with new pledges to limit carbon emissions with the idea of keeping the planet

from frying much beyond one and a half degrees Celsius. We've seen lots of commitments to

reduce methane emissions, limit deforestation, phase out coal power, a whole bunch of other

stuff, plus lots of money that's been promised to fight the problem.

If all this is followed through on, there's a chance to keep global warming to around 1.8 degrees, according to the International Energy Agency.

That's not super, but it's far better than the two and a half or so that was predicted before Glasgow, and we still have a few days to come. George and I discussed this in other cop tidbits, including a few whinges about the disorganization in this week's episode. Then we passed the mic to EMEA editor Peter Thal Larson and Karen Quack, who attended the Web Summit in Lisbon, the annual jamboree for tech companies, entrepreneurs, investors, regulators, and other hangers-on.

They tell us how the event, which attracted 40,000 attendees, shows that even the people who make

their living from tech are eager to get back face-to-face mingling after the pandemic.

Give a listen.

George, it is great to see you here in a windowless conference room in Glasgow, Scotland.

You and I are both. We've been here for a couple days now for the COP 26, the big UN climate conference.

We won't complain too much about the organization.

Not too much.

Not too much, but we have to get a little of that in here because it has definitely been quite a, quite a challenge. But more importantly, what's happened here? You've been running around

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