‘DOOMSDAY DEVICE’ TICKING DOWN, JOHNSON TELLS WORLD LEADERS
▶ British prime minister summons spirit of James Bond to avert environmental catastrophe
Boris Johnson invoked the spirit of fictional British spy hero James Bond in the fight against climate change.
The UK prime minister told world leaders at the opening session of Cop26 in Glasgow that younger generations “will not forgive us” if leaders do not deliver at the summit.
Bond “generally comes to the climax of his highly lucrative films 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”, he said.
“We are in roughly the same position, my fellow global leaders, as James Bond today – except that the tragedy is this is not a movie and the doomsday device is real,” he said.
Mr Johnson called for action on phasing out coal-generated power, protecting and restoring forests, providing finance for countries to tackle climate change and increasing the number of electric vehicles.
“The children who will judge us are children not yet born, and their children,” he said.
“We are now coming centre stage before a vast and uncountable audience of posterity and we must not fluff our lines or miss our cue.
“Because if we fail, they will not forgive us – they will know that Glasgow was the historic turning point when history failed to turn.”
World leaders and other prominent figures will address the two-week summit in the coming days, with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres following Mr Johnson.
He criticised “a deficit of credibility and a surplus of confusion” over emissions reduction and net-zero targets, which held “different meanings and different metrics”.
Mr Guterres said that already the “sirens are sounding” and “our planet is telling us something”.
US President Joe Biden said that the “eye of history” was upon the summit.
“Climate change is already ravaging the world,” he said. “It’s not a hypothetical threat. It is destroying people’s lives and livelihoods, and doing it every single day.”
The UK is pledging an extra £1 billion ($1.37bn) in climate finance by 2025 to support developing countries if the economy grows as forecast.
Before the Cop26 summit, a report said that developed countries would not reach the $100bn a year goal promised for poorer countries to help them develop cleanly and cope with climate effects with public and private finance, until 2023.
The UK doubled its promised climate aid to £11.6bn over five years in 2019 and the new announcement would bring that to £12.6bn if delivered.
The UN has warned countries that plans to cut climatewarming emissions in the next decade are not enough to put the world on track to limit warming to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.
Temperatures rising above that could lead to increasingly severe extreme weather, rising seas and damage to crops, health and wildlife.
More than 120 leaders are set to attend the summit, where wealthy countries are under pressure to deliver the financial support for poorer ones least responsible for, but most vulnerable to, climate change.
Observers hope last weekend’s meeting in Rome of leaders of the G20 nations, which between them emit nearly 80 per cent of global carbon emissions, will give a strong impetus to Cop26.
The G20 major economies committed on Sunday to the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, the most ambitious target of the 2015 Paris Agreement.