Boris says Cop26 must not fail
BORIS JOHNSON has issued a stark warning that failure at the Cop26 climate change summit in Glasgow will mean the whole effort to curb emissions will have foundered.
On the eve of the gathering in Scotland, the Prime Minister said that the goal of the Paris agreement six years ago of keeping global warming down to 1.5C depended on developed nations contributing more. At the end of the G20 summit in Rome, he said they had made some progress but that the outcome of the talks in Glasgow intended to deliver on those commitments remained “in the balance”.
Mr Johnson said: “If Glasgow fails, than the whole thing fails. The Paris agreement will have crumpled at the first reckoning.
“The world’s only viable mechanism for dealing with climate change will be holed beneath the waterline. Right now, the Paris agreement and the hope that came with it is just a piece of paper.”
Mr Johnson said that world leaders had “inched forward” in the Italian capital but it was “nip and tuck, touch and go” whether they would make further progress over the next two weeks in Scotland.
In particular, he highlighted the failure of the final G20 communique to make any mention of phasing out domestic coal consumption. “That is the really important question,” he said.
The Conservative Party leader added: “We have had a reasonable G20, but there is a huge amount to do.” The result of the G20 was that leaders agreed on carbon neutrality “by or around mid-century” as focus now turns towards the United Nations climate talks in Glasgow, which officially start today.
Politicians in attendance in Italy also pledged to end public financing for coal-fired power generation abroad, but the Prime Minister, before departing for Glasgow, said environmental promises made by leading nations were “starting to sound hollow” as he criticised the lack of action by G20 partners.
Meanwhile Downing Street has denied Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron have reached an agreement to de-escalate their increasingly bitter dispute over post-Brexit fishing rights.
Following a “brush-by” meeting between the two leaders in the margins of the G20 summit in Rome, French officials were reported as saying they had agreed to try to resolve their differences.
However, in a briefing for British journalists, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman made clear the UK did not recognise the claims that there had been an agreement.
“I have seen the same reporting,” the spokesman said.
“It will be for the French to decide if they want to step away from the threats they have made in recent days about breaching the Brexit (trade) agreement,” the spokesman said.
French officials have warned they will bar UK fishing boats from some ports and tighten customs checks on lorries entering the country with British goods from Tuesday unless more licences are granted for their small boats to fish in British.
Britain has said the threats represent a breach of the post-Brexit Trade and Co-operation Agreement (TCA) struck between the UK and the EU and warned it could trigger the disputes mechanism under the terms of the deal.