Inside Politics: Johnson tells Cop26 its ‘one minute to midnight’ on climate

Johnson says promises on emissions are starting to sound ‘hollow’ as world leaders gather at Glasgow summit, writes Matt Mathers

Monday 01 November 2021 08:31 GMT

(PA)

As Cop26 gets underway in a chilly Glasgow, Boris Johnson has been turning up the heat on his opposite numbers to take more action to save a planet already on fire. The PM, who makes a keynote address later today, warned at the G20 summit yesterday that if “Glasgow fails then the whole thing fails”. The name of the game at this summit is to “keep 1.5C alive” – a reference to the global warming target set out in the Paris Agreement. But with China, Russia and India – some of the world’s biggest emitters of harmful greenhouse gases – not playing ball, the chances of meeting that goal are looking increasingly slim, a point Johnson has himself conceded. There are questions too for the UK, which is still equivocating over the new Cambo oil field off the coast of Shetland – a site that, if approved, will pump out some 170bn barrels of oil.

Inside the bubble

Education questions from 2.30 followed by a ten minute rule motion on electric safety in public houses. There is also a debate on the Budget.

Coming up:

– Foreign secretary Liz Truss on BBC Radio 4 Today at 8.10am

– Shadow business secretary Ed Miliband at Sky News at 9.05am

Daily Briefing

TIME TO COP-ON: The crucial climate talks dominate the news agenda today and splash the front of most major news outlets, with Johnson’s remarks at the G20 summit in Rome featuring heavily across papers and websites. Speaking at the end of the G20 yesterday, a visibly frustrated PM said the gathering had fallen short of what was required to put Cop on course for success, after leaders failed to reach agreement on the phasing out of coal. Promises made to tackle the climate crisis are “starting to sound hollow” when the “solution is clear”, he said. And he agreed a pledge for all the biggest economies to achieve net zero emissions was “vague”, after the G20 failed to set a target date of 2050. The commitments made at the G20 were “drops in a rapidly warming ocean when you consider the challenge we’ve all admitted is ahead of us”. Johnson is set to speak in Glasgow later today at around midday and is expected to say: “It’s one minute to midnight and we need to act now.”

CASH BOOST: The PM is pledging to put an extra £1bn into a climate crisis fund for poor nations – but only if the UK economy bounces back from Covid. There was anger when wealthy nations announced last week that they would not achieve a long-promised $100bn (£73bn) annual target for the fund for developing countries until 2023 – three years late. The UK is currently contributing around £2.3bn a year, but had refused to increase its share in the run-up to Cop26, even as other countries did so. It also stands accused of breaking the rules of the initiative because, as The Independent revealed, the cash will be swiped from the overseas aid budget – despite a requirement that it be “additional”. Think tank Overseas Development Institute also suggested the UK was short-changing poor countries by around £1.9bn a year, based on its population size and historic carbon emissions. Johnson has pledged the extra £1bn – but only by 2025 and if the UK economy grows fast enough to revert the aid budget back from 0.5 per cent of national income to 0.7 per cent. The summit in Glasgow was hit by travel chaos on its opening day as train lines between London Euston and Glasgow suffered major delays due to inclement weather.

FISHING WARS LATEST: There is no end in sight to the UK/France Brexit fishing row after Emmanuel Macron yesterday warned that Britain must give ground in the dispute or else Paris will retaliate with trade reprisals. “The ball is in Britain’s court,” the French president told a G20 news conference. “I don’t want escalation. We need to be serious,” he added, minutes after Johnson revealed the pair had held a “frank” conversation on the crisis. It came after Jean Castex, France’s prime minister, wrote a letter to European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday outlining that the bloc must show the European population it is better to be in the union than out of it.

PROTOCOL ROW: Lord Frost has accused the EU of acting “without regard to the huge political, economic and identity sensitivities” in Northern Ireland, in a further escalation of tensions with Brussels. The Brexit minister claimed the bloc had “destroyed cross-community consent” with its strict enforcement of the Northern Ireland Protocol – a key part of the Brexit agreement he negotiated and that Boris Johnson signed in 2019. Lord Frost’s remarks – in the foreword to a Policy Exchange paper – came as talks between London and Brussels over the protocol broke up without a breakthrough on Friday, with the UK government insisting differences remained “significant”. “We must return to the protocol and deliver a more robust, a more balanced, outcome than we could in 2019,” Lord Frost insisted, as he argued it had “begun to damage” the Good Friday Agreement.

NO REPLY: Johnson has not responded to an MP’s call for action on Islamophobia for a year, it can be revealed. Afzal Khan, a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims, wrote to the prime minister in November 2020 warning of rising hate crime and questioning “the inaction of this government in tackling the issue”.An official guide says that government departments should respond to correspondence from MPs within 20 working days, but Mr Khan has not received a reply. The delay will be formally raised in the House of Commons on Monday, which marks the beginning of Islamophobia Awareness Month.

On the record

“We have made reasonable progress at the G20, all things considered – but it is not enough. If Glasgow fails then the whole thing fails. The Paris Agreement will have crumpled at the first reckoning.”

PM on Cop26.

From the Twitterati

“At the airport, leaders’ planes are queuing up to take off for Glasgow..not exactly subtle irony with the delegations all jumping on the plane – Ciao er Grazie Roma!”