PM admits Cop26 may not make real progress
Crash survivor must leave Israel
AN Israeli court yesterday ordered that a six-year-old boy who survived a cable car crash in Italy must be returned to his relatives there, amid a bitter custody battle between them and his family in Israel.
The court ordered Eitan Biran to be returned to “the place of his normal residence, which is Italy”. It ordered his grandfather, who had taken him to Israel, to pay around £14,500 in expenses and lawyers’ fees. Eitan’s parents and younger sibling were among 14 killed in the crash in May.
BORIS JOHNSON has admitted he fears the major international climate change summit he will host from Sunday could fail to make the progress needed.
The Prime Minister will welcome world leaders to Glasgow for the United Nations Cop26 summit, but said it was “touch and go” whether key goals would be met. “We need as many people as possible to go to net zero so that they are not producing too much carbon dioxide by the middle of the century,” he said.
“Now, I think it can be done. It’s going to be very, very tough, this summit, and I’m very worried, because it might go wrong and we might not get the agreements that we need. It’s touch and go.”
Mr Johnson said “peer pressure” at the UN summit could force some nations into action – but, with some major world leaders, including China’s Xi Jinping, expected to stay away due to the state of the coronavirus pandemic, the chances of that tactic being a success may be limited.
Mr Johnson acknowledged “it’s very, very far from clear that we will get the progress that we need” although he praised Australia for the “heroic” decision to commit to net zero by 2050.
Downing Street said Mr Johnson was setting out the “realistic situation” about the chances of Cop26 being a success. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “We have made some progress with a number of countries. Saudi Arabia has come forward with some commitments, for example, but the Prime Minister was simply setting out the realistic situation that bringing together countries from around the world to sign up to ambitious targets such as these that require tangible commitments is difficult and challenging, and will require some intense negotiation.”
The Prime Minister, who was questioned by schoolchildren in Downing Street yesterday, hit out at Coca-Cola as being one of 12 corporations “producing the overwhelming bulk of the world’s plastics”.
He told a children’s press conference on the climate crisis: “There are about 12 companies at the moment, 12 big corporations, that are producing the overwhelming bulk of the world’s plastics. Big famous drinks companies that you may know but I won’t name. I don’t know why not, but I won’t name them.”
Having said he would not name any of the firms, he then continued: “Coca-Cola, for instance, and others, which are responsible for producing huge quantities of plastic, and we’ve got to move away from that and we’ve got to find other ways of packaging and selling our stuff.”
Mr Johnson said recycling plastic “doesn’t work” as he stressed the need to reduce the amount that is used. During a press conference at No 10, he said: “Recycling isn’t the answer. Recycling... it doesn’t begin to address the problem.” He said “the only answer” was “we’ve all got to cut down on our use of plastic”.
Appearing alongside Mr Johnson, World Wildlife Fund UK’s chief executive Tanya Steele said: “We have to reduce, we have to reuse – I do think we need to do a little bit of recycling, PM, and have some system to do so.” Mr Johnson said: “It doesn’t work.” In response to the Prime Minister, Recycling Association chief executive Simon Ellin told BBC Radio 4’s World At One programme: “It’s very disappointing. I think he has completely lost the plastic plot here, if I’m honest.”