48 HRS TO SAVE PLANET
Downbeat PM urged to stay in Glasgow for as long as it takes to seal climate deal
CLIMATE change day tripper Boris Johnson was urged last night to stay in Glasgow for as long as it takes to secure a meaningful COP26 deal.
Nicola Sturgeon led calls for the Prime Minister to remain at the talks to secure a planetsaving outcome.
Johnson dashed north of the Border with 48 hours of official talks still to go and a negotiations update showing the 2030 targets to limit rising temperatures would be missed.
His arrival saw him make a desperate plea to negotiators and national leaders to have more ambition for a deal by tomorrow’s deadline.
The PM ducked an invitation to stay on and make a difference to talks after Sturgeon reinforced her political truce with an offer to help.
The First Minister, who is on the margins of the conference, said: “I welcome the Prime Minister’s return to Glasgow and urge him to stay for as long as necessary until a deal is done.
“As has been the case all along, I will do everything I can to assist and support these efforts.”
The SNP leader went on: “The draft cover text is a start but it must be the floor – not the ceiling.
“The imperative for leaders now – on climate finance and the pathway to 1.5C – is to negotiate the ambition significantly upwards. It must not be watered down.
“It is vital that the world emerges from COP26 with 1.5 degrees well and truly alive and closing the finance gap is key to that.
“It is also a moral obligation developed countries owe to those less developed and most vulnerable to the impact of climate change.”
But Johnson delivered a downbeat message about the progress of the conference in Glasgow, telling delegates that the it “is not going to fix” climate change in one go.
He added that the most depressing thing about climate change has been that it “doesn’t really look as though it’s capable of being fixed any time soon”.
But the Prime Minister told a press conference: “What we can possibly do, if things go well in the remaining 48 hours, 52 hours – and I don’t see why we shouldn’t go into extra-time if we have to – is … come away from this with the first genuine road map for a solution to … climate change that I can think of in my lifetime.”
He added: “It is now within reach. At COP26 in these final days we just need to reach out together and grasp it.
“So my question to my fellow world leaders as we enter the last hours of COP26 is – will you help us do that?
“Will you help us grasp the opportunity or will you stand in the way?”
Labour’s Ed Miliband
accused Johnson of a “dereliction of duty” by turning up for a day when the negotiations looked like missing the 1.5C target on carbon emissions.
The Shadow Energy Secretary, who arrived in Glasgow shortly after Johnson, said: “I can’t believe for the life of me why he is going back to London.
“He’s making this a day trip to the most important summit ever on climate change.
“When he is a host that is a dereliction of duty. He should be staying to get a grip.”
He added: “I think we do need to be clear, with three days of the summit to go, that there is a chasm between where we are and where we need to be.
“The last 24 hours have been a pretty devastating reality check on the Government attempts to frankly greenwash Glasgow.
“Climate Action’s tracker tells us that rather than 1.5 degrees pledges for 2030 were are on track for a devastating 2.4 degrees, which will mean billions of people suffering extreme heatwaves.”
Miliband, a former Labour Party leader, added: “We need to reduce emissions from our projected 53billion tons in 2030 to 25billion tons by that date.
“That’s a 28billion ton gap and on the UN update from yesterday we’ve closed just 4.8billion tons of that 28billion tons gap.
“That is a long way from where we need to be.”