Inside Politics: 1.5C target in ‘intensive care’ as Cop deal on coal watered down

Progress made as pledge on coal included in final document but campaigners warn there is a long way to go to keep 1.5C alive, writes Matt Mathers

(PA)

“Phasing down” or “phasing out” – much of a muchness? Boris Johnson seemed to think so last night as he defended the final Cop26 agreement, which included a pledge by all countries to “phase down” coal power. After two weeks of intense negotiations, the crucial summit in Glasgow has ended but it’s the language surrounding coal that means the fallout from the talks is likely to continue for a few days yet. The PM and the Cop president, Alok Sharma, have hit out at India and China for watering down the agreement, saying both will have to explain their actions to countries most vulnerable to climate change. Were the talks a success? That the word coal made it into the final document at all is historic, but the general consensus among campaigners and experts is that there is a long way to go to keep 1.5C alive, an aspiration that Labour says is now in “intensive care”. Some of Cop’s harshest critics – including the teenage activist Greta Thunberg – have branded the talks a complete failure. Elsewhere, counter-terror police have arrested suspects under the Terrorism Act following a Remembrance Day blast in Liverpool. The PM has admitted he could have handled the Owen Paterson scandal better and tensions between the West and Russia are ramping up.

Inside the bubble

Commons sits from 2.30pm with defence questions. Later, the PM is expected to give a statement to the house on the conclusion of Cop26 in Glasgow.

Coming up:

– Minister without portfolio Oliver Dowden on ITV GMB at 8.30am

– Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy on Times Radio at 8.35am

Daily Briefing

COP FALL OUT: Speaking at a Downing Street press conference, the PM said the agreement sounded the “death knell” for coal, but admitted that his own feelings about the Cop conference as a whole were “tinged with disappointment”. He also hit out at China and India, whose last minute interventions in Glasgow watered down the final agreement on the fossil fuel. “We can lobby, we can cajole, we can encourage,” he said, “but we cannot force sovereign nations to do what they do not wish to do. It’s ultimately their decision to make and they must stand by it.” The final agreement was condemned as “an utter betrayal” by the Cop26 coalition, an international group of environmental organisations. Spokesperson Asad Rehman attacked the UK government’s “greenwash and PR”, adding: “This Cop has failed to keep 1.5C alive.” The UN’s climate change chief Patricia Espinosa called the pact a “good compromise” and said the goal of limiting temperature rises to 1.5C was “definitely alive” after Glasgow. “I think this is a very positive result in the sense that it gives us very clear guidance on what we need to do in the coming years,” she said. Writing for The Independent, shadow business secretary Ed Miliband accused the PM of “undermining” his own climate conference as he called the government to scrap a new coal mine in Cumbria and the Cambo oil field.

LIVERPOOL BLAST: Home secretary Priti Patel and other ministers are awaiting further updates this morning following a blast that killed one person and injured another at Liverpool Women’s Hospital on Remembrance Sunday. Counter-terror police have arrested three men after a taxi exploded outside the hospital shortly before 11am. The driver was being treated for injuries in hospital. Friends hailed him as a “hero” amid unconfirmed reports that he noticed an explosive device after picking up a passenger before he “locked the scumbag in the car”. We’ll have live updates on this story throughout the day.

COULD’VE BEEN BETTER: During Sunday’s press conference, Johnson also admitted that he could have handled the Owen Paterson scandal much “better”, in comments that are the closest he has come to apologising as allegations of sleaze continue to rock parliament. It came after fresh claims by Jennifer Arcuri about her relationship with the PM while he was Mayor of London. The US entrepreneur has alleged that Johnson overruled the advice of his staff in 2013 to attend an event promoting her tech venture Innotech and make her “happy”. A diary entry from February 2013 claims he told her: “I just want you to know they came to me and I crushed them. They said: ‘You can’t do this Innotech in April.’ I said: ‘Yes, I can, I’ll be there.’” According to a separate entry, the then-mayor allegedly asked Ms Arcuri: “How can I be the thrust – the throttle – your mere footstep as you make your career? Tell me: how I can help you?” Labour is calling for a watchdog to “look again” at the relationship between Johnson and Arcuri. A spokesperson for the GLA told The Independent: “The GLA’s monitoring officer will look at any new significant evidence that is presented in accordance with the GLA’s procedures.”

STANDARDS VOTE: Later, MPs are set to vote on whether to scrap the controversial standards reforms that sparked Westminster’s sleaze row. A motion to rescind the so-called Leadsom amendment, which looked to establish a review of the MPs standards investigation process and delay Paterson’s suspension for breaking lobbying rules, has been tabled by Commons Leader Jacob Rees-Mogg for Monday. We’ll have live updates on the vote and all the day’s other political action here.

RUSSIA FEARS: The West is becoming increasingly concerned by the behaviour of Russia, which is accused of being behind a migrant crisis at the Belarus/Poland border and has also stationed 100,000 troops in Ukraine, raising fears of military action. The UK foreign secretary has called on Vladimir Putin to intervene in the “shameful manufactured migrant crisis” at the border of Belarus and Poland. Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Liz Truss insisted the UK “will not look away” as she urged Russia to take “clear responsibility” to end the dispute involving thousands of migrants and Polish troops. “Russia has a clear responsibility here. It must press the Belarusian authorities to end the crisis and enter into dialogue,” Truss wrote. It comes as Mr Putin warned Belarus over its threats to disrupt gas supplies to the EU amid the migrant crisis. In a TV interview on Saturday, Mr Putin said President Alexander Lukashenko may have made the threat in a fit of temper, adding that disruption to EU gas supplies would put Belarus in breach of a contract with Russia.

BY-ELECTION LATEST: Labour’s newly-selected candidate to fight the by-election forced by tge resignation of former Conservative minister Owen Paterson has vowed to bring back “a sense of decency”. Ben Wood said he was “over the moon” to be chosen as the flagbearer for Keir Starmer’s party in the upcoming North Shropshire contest. Paterson quit earlier this month following the debacle which saw Boris Johnson’s government make a botched attempt to save him from suspension and rewrite disciplinary rules in the process. The former Conservative MP had a huge majority of almost 23,000 in the West Midlands seat, but Wood claimed the Tories had “taken North Shropshire for granted”.

On the record

“It’s time finally to say no to the proposed new coal mine in Cumbria and end the plan for the new Cambo oil field, which is the equivalent of running 18 new coal-fired power stations for a year. We should rewrite our trade deal with Australia, not to dilute the temperature goals as the government has been doing, but to strengthen it to put 1.5 degrees at its heart.”

Shadow business secretary Ed Miliband calls for greater action on climate.

From the Twitterati

“Boris Johnson says he doesn’t think, as a native English speaker, that it makes much difference “whether the language is phase down or phase out” on coal as “the direction of travel is pretty much the same”. Not sure that’s entirely right.”

Daily Mirror politics editor Pippa Crerar on Cop climate deal.

Essential reading

• Ed Miliband, The Independent: No more free passes – we have 12 months to show we are serious about saving the 1.5C target
• Andrew Grice, The Independent: PM’s spin did not live up to reality at Cop26 – this was no triumph for ‘global Britain’
• Caroline Haughey, The Independent: To trample over the intentions of the Modern Slavery Act is reprehensible
• Charlotte Ivers, The Times: As the red wall rebels wail, tomorrow’s Tory rulers wait — looking awfully like Cameroons
• William Davies, The New Statesman: Theory wars – how postmodernism became weaponised

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