Climate

Prime minister Boris Johnson has warned that “we risk blowing it” on climate if countries do not agree a draft deal on the table at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow.Speaking from London, the prime minister said he was urging world leaders to show the “courage” to secure a deal which could put the world on a track to limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.But his call for them to sign off the draft agreement published early on Friday is a clear indication that he has given up hope of achieving any further improvements on a text which has been criticised by climate activists as too weak.“What everybody needs to do now is recognise that we really are in the final furlong, and it’s in the final furlong where the horses change places,” said Mr Johnson.“What needs to happen now is that people need to understand that the deal that’s on the table – the so-called cover decision – that is the text.“We either find a way of agreeing it or I’m afraid we risk blowing it. That’s the reality.”Following phone talks with leaders of Italy and Egypt, Mr Johnson said: “What I’m saying to world leaders in all my conversations is ‘This is the moment – tell your negotiating teams how important this is. “’Tell them to have the conviction and the courage to come together and agree that cover decision because people are watching this around the world. It’s a moment of massive choice for the world’.”It was time for rich nations to commit to increase donations to help the developing world cut emissions and make necessary adaptations to deal with the extreme weather caused by higher temperatures, he said.Pledges made at the Copenhagen summit in 2009 to deliver $100bn a year have still not been met, with the target unlikely to be hit until three years late in 2023.“We do need to see the cash on the table to help the developing world to make the  changes that are necessary,” said Mr Johnson.“That’s what needs to happen in the next few hours.“People need to see that there’s enough cash to make a start, there’s enough commitments to make a start and that if they can have the courage to do this deal – to agree the cover decision that’s on the table today – then we will have that roadmap that will enable us to go forward and start to remove the threat of anthropogenic climate change.”The PM said it had been clear all along that it would not be possible to reach an agreement at Glasgow that would ensure global warming does not cross the 1.5C threshold, which experts believe will allow the world to avoid the most catastrophic consequences of climate change.World leaders will have to come back with further commitments at future summits, he said.“What we can’t do is stop global warming at Glasgow – we can’t, we’ve got to accept that,” saidMr Johnson.“What we can do is keep alive the prospect of restraining the increase in the planet’s temperatures to 1.5 degrees by the end of the century.“Now, even an increase of 1.5 degrees is going to have some pretty big consequences for the environment and for human beings. But it’s much, much better than allowing temperatures to increase by two degrees or more.“What we can still achieve at Cop in Glasgow is keep alive that prospect.” Mr Johnson has faced criticism from Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon and Labour Cop26 spokesperson Ed Miliband for staying away from Glasgow as the crucial United Nations conference enters its final straight.But he brushed off suggestions that he should have returned to the summit after his three-hour visit on Wednesday, saying only: “I can absolutely promise you we’ve been shifting heaven and earth to try and get all our friends, our acquaintances around the world  – everybody –  to see the vital importance of this agreement in Glasgow.” More

Hopes of keeping alive the chance of limiting global warming to 1.5C were tonight slipping through Boris Johnson’s fingers, as the Cop26 climate summit enters its final day without agreement on key issues and with negotiations believed to be going backwards on a crucial fossil fuel pledge.United Nations secretary general Antonio Gutteres warned that the 1.5C threshold, which is seen as a maximum limit to avoid the most catastrophic consequences of climate change, is “on life support”.The UK’s Cop26 president Alok Sharma said that negotiators faced a “monumental challenge” to reach a credible conclusion to the two-week summit, which was billed as humanity’s last chance to stave off the threat of devastating climate change.In a plea to all countries to “strain every sinew” to get an agreement that will make a real difference, Mr Sharma warned: “Time is running out.”Negotiators were working until late on Thursday on a new draft agreement, expected to appear early on the final scheduled day of the summit.Agreement was reached on assistance for vulnerable countries in adapting to climate change, and there was said to be progress on the issue of recompensing them for past loss and damage. But on the crucial issue of finance, countries remained far apart, with little progress towards the UN’s call for a fivefold or even tenfold increase in rich-world support by 2030.As well, UK officials believe that Wednesday’s breakthrough on fossil fuels is likely to be reversed in frantic horse-trading as the summit draws to its end, with Saudi Arabia leading a drive to scrub out provisions included in an early draft agreement – for the first time in a UN document of this kind – to phase out coal and end subsidies for fossil fuels.Delegates played down the significance of a dramatically announced declaration from the US and China, pointing out that while their agreement to co-operate on climate change was welcome, it was missing the firm figures and timetables which would allow them to be held to account for it.Meanwhile, Boris Johnson was coming under intense pressure to return to Glasgow and fight for a deal which would keep the world on track for warming of no more than 1.5C over pre-industrial levels and bring forward the provision of $100bn in annual support for vulnerable nations.Friends of the Earth said the prime minister should be in Glasgow to “throw the kitchen sink” at getting a deal. But Downing Street indicated that he would be remaining in London, making his 22-minute press conference on Wednesday his last appearance at Cop26.FoE climate campaigner Rachel Kennerley told The Independent: “It does hit a flat note that he won’t lobby his counterparts to stump up overdue financial help for poorer nations who need and deserve it, and really pressure other leaders to drop fossil-fuel dependence.“This is a complex negotiation process now in the final, crucial hours, so he would be showing his commitment to that all-important 1.5 degrees if he was here to throw the kitchen sink at this deal: he sounded very keen at the beginning of the fortnight.”Labour’s Cop26 spokesperson Ed Miliband said the PM’s promise to keep 1.5 alive was “in jeopardy” and he should be in Glasgow to try to save it.“Leaving on Wednesday night was a mistake when we know from previous summits that prime ministerial leadership can make a real difference to the outcome,” Mr Miliband told The Independent.“When Britain and the world needs a statesman who can twist arms, push those dragging their feet and get things done, we’ve instead got a showman. Boris Johnson should be chasing down a deal to halve global emissions by 2030, not just chasing headlines.”Mr Guterres said that the response to the climate crisis “requires all hands on deck” and nations need to “pick up the pace” and show ambition.On the basis of pledges so far – which would deliver only around one-fifth of the emissions reductions needed by 2030 – the world remains “on track for a catastrophic temperature rise well above 2C”, the UN boss told a Cop26 press conference.“The emissions gap remains a devastating threat, the finance and adaptation gap represent a glaring injustice for the developing world.“We need even more ambition in future revised nationally determined contributions, we need pledges to be implemented.“We need commitments to turn concrete, we need actions to be verified, we need to bridge the deep and real credibility gap.”He welcomed a co-operation agreement between the US and China announced on Wednesday, but added: “Promises ring hollow when the fossil fuels industry still receives trillions in subsidies, as measured by the IMF. Or when countries are still building coal plants. Or when carbon is still without a price.”Guterres said the Glasgow talks “are in a crucial moment” and need to accomplish more than a “lowest common denominator” deal which represents the most that all 200 participating nations will support.“That would not respond to the huge challenges we face,” he said.Mr Sharma said that drafts released overnight on a number of crunch topics “represent a significant step further toward the comprehensive, ambitious and balanced set of outcomes which I hope parties will adopt by consensus at the end of tomorrow.”But he added: “Whilst we have made progress, we are not there yet on the most crucial issues.“There is still a lot more work to be done and Cop26 is scheduled to close at the end of tomorrow.“Time is running out… We still have a monumental challenge ahead of us.”Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate voiced scepticism at the pledges made by world leaders and businesses at Glasgow.“We see them making fancy speeches, we hear about new pledges and promises, but we are drowning in promises,” she said.“Promises will not stop the suffering of the people, pledges will not stop the planet from warming. Only immediate and drastic action will pull us back from the abyss.” More

Boris Johnson was today under pressure to do more to secure a credible deal at the Cop26 climate change summit, after he admitted that with just 48 hours to go there was “a huge amount” to do to keep alive hopes of preventing disastrous global warming.Paying a flying visit to the summit venue in Glasgow, the prime minister urged fellow world leaders to “pick up the phone” to their negotiating teams and give them a mandate to compromise to get a deal which would put the world on track for keeping warming within 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.But he was accused of a “dereliction of duty” as he left the conference to return to London for a cabinet meeting on his “levelling up” agenda, rather than staying to lead the battle to toughen up a draft agreement which environmentalists warn lacks the necessary ambition.The PM appeared to be sidelined by a joint declaration announced by the US and China just over an hour after his departure, under which Beijing and Washington pledged to cooperate on methane reduction and decarbonisation over the coming decade.Stressing the importance of cutting methane swiftly, US climate envoy John Kerry said the pact, negotiated over a number of weeks by Joe Biden and Chinese president Xi Jinping, would allow the world’s two biggest greenhouse gas emitters to “work together to raise climate ambition in this decisive decade”.Released early on Wednesday – a day after warnings that progress agreed at Glasgow will result in temperature rises as high as 2.4C – the draft Cop26 agreement was hailed for specifically demanding for the first time in a UN document an accelerated phase-out of fossil fuels.But its appeal to countries to come forward with improved proposals on emission reductions in 2022 was condemned as insufficiently robust, with Greenpeace International executive director Jennifer Morgan saying it was “not a plan to solve the climate crisis… It’s a polite request that countries maybe, possibly, do more next year.”In a brief press conference following talks with negotiating teams in Glasgow, Mr Johnson conceded that early progress on issues like deforestation and finance had ebbed away over the course of the two-week summit as officials wrangled over the “nuts and bolts” of the final agreement.Switching from his earlier football metaphors to rugby, he described the situation as a “rolling maul”, explaining: “The line is in sight but if we are going to get there we need a determined push to get us over the line.“We need to be more ambitious and we need more credible plans for implementation.”The PM added: “We’re now in the hard yards, the nuts and bolts of international climate diplomacy. Negotiations are getting tough and with just a few days left there is still a huge amount to do.“It is within reach, we just need to reach out together and grasp it. My question to world leaders is: will you help us grasp that opportunity or will you stand in the way?”Mr Johnson said there was “no excuse” for countries to “pat themselves on the back” for promises made in the Paris accord of 2015 if they do not take the steps to deliver on them now. They risk an “immense and long-lasting” backlash from the people of the world who will find their failure to act “absolutely incomprehensible”, said the PM, adding: “Frankly, we will deserve their criticism and their opprobrium.”But – unlike US president Joe Biden, who has called out China and Russia – he refused to publicly name and shame the world leaders blocking an ambitious deal, insisting he would not “chivvy or hector” individual countries as summit host.And he made no promise to return for the final stages of the crucial meeting, which is due to wind up on Friday but which he accepted may spill over into the weekend.Labour Cop26 spokesperson Ed Miliband accused the PM of a “dereliction of duty” for settling for a “lowest common denominator” outcome to the Glasgow summit, rather than staying on to fight for a positive conclusion.Mr Miliband said it was “unimaginable” that Mr Johnson was leaving Glasgow after a visit of only a few hours on Wednesday. “The prime minister has treated this summit with nothing like the seriousness that it deserved.”To “salvage” some hope from Glasgow, Mr Johnson should be ready to stay at Cop26 for the coming days and combine behind-the-scenes telephone diplomacy with Beijing and Moscow with a “big public fight” to shame the biggest polluters into firming up pledges, said Mr Miliband.If he was willing to engage over the next few days, Mr Johnson might have a chance of changing the wording of the final text, so countries are required, rather than “urged”, to come forward with better pledges next year, and so that the document is clear that they must aim for warming of no more than 1.5C, rather than “1.5 or 2C”, he said.“Just checking in with the negotiators is just not good enough,” said Mr Miliband, who accompanied Gordon Brown to the 2009 summit in Copenhagen when the then prime minister took charge of events in the final days to try to beef up the conclusion. “This is not a summit taking place overseas. This is our summit. We are the hosts, we have a special responsibility, we have a special opportunity and obligation.”Representatives chair of small islands and low-lying states threatened by rising sea levels said that the draft agreement was not tough enough on the need for enhanced emission reduction pledges at next year’s Cop27 summit in Egypt.“‘Urging’, ‘encouraging’ and ‘inviting’ is not the decisive language that this moment calls for,” said Dr Walton Webson, of the Alliance of Small Island States. “We have limited time left at the Cop to get this right.”And Bob Ward, from the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, said: “This draft includes all the key elements of a successful outcome, but there needs to be more ambition and more precision.“We need countries to agree to return every one or two years with more ambitious pledges. We also need stronger evidence of action to deliver the pledges.”Rebecca Newson of Greenpeace UK said: “Boris Johnson will lose what’s left of his climate credibility if he fails  to rule out new oil and gas and presses ahead with proposals for a new oil field at Cambo, after he’s told other countries to ‘pull out all the stops’ at Cop26.“The UK presidency has a particular responsibility to make sure this Cop is a success and delivers a truly ambitious commitment from world leaders in the final Glasgow agreement to phase out fossil fuels.”Mr Brown himself accusing the PM of treating the summit “like a day trip”.The former chancellor, recently appointed WHO ambassador for global health financing, slammed the draft agreement as “an admission of prospective failure”.While there was a “great deal of ambitious talk” in the document, it contained no agreement on the two “make-or-break decisions” of halving carbon emissions by 2030 and meeting the 1.5C target. And he said its plans for financing green growth in developing countries “lowered the level of ambition”.Mr Johnson spent only around three hours at the Cop26 venue, taking the more climate-friendly option of a nine-hour return train journey after facing criticism for flying back from his previous visit by private jet on 2 November. More