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      Cop26: 40 nations back clean technology plan to help developing world hit net zero

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      A new plan to help deliver clean and affordable technology across the world by 2030 is being hailed as another Cop26 milestone by Boris Johnson.A total of 40 nations are backing the ‘Glasgow Breakthroughs’, to give developing countries access to the innovation and tools needed to make the shift to net zero carbon emissions.Downing Street believes the initiative can create 20 million new jobs globally and add over $16 trillion to the economies of both emerging and advanced economies.It will cover: clean power, zero emission road vehicles, near-zero emission steel production, low carbon hydrogen and climate-resilient and sustainable agriculture.By “sending strong signals to industry”, governments believe they can stimulate green investment, join up research efforts and mobilise private finance.On Monday, Mr Johnson launched a £3bn ‘Clean Green Initiative’ in Glasgow, to help fund infrastructure and green technology in developing countries.“By making clean technology the most affordable, accessible and attractive choice, the default go-to in what are currently the most polluting sectors, we can cut emissions right around the world,” the prime minister said.“The Glasgow Breakthroughs will turbocharge this forward, so that by 2030 clean technologies can be enjoyed everywhere, not only reducing emissions but also creating more jobs and greater prosperity.”The announcement comes after a deal was announced aiming to save the world’s forests, by halting and reversing deforestation over the next decade.China’s Xi Jinping, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and Joe Biden, the US president, all backed the declaration to protect vast areas, ranging from the Amazon to eastern Siberia and the Congo basin.Australia, India, Japan, Turkey, the US, South Korea and EU nations are among the 40 committing to the Glasgow Breakthroughs.Their leaders will also commit to discuss global progress every year in each sector, with annual reports by the International Energy Agency and a United Nations body.It may be the first step towards annual reporting of the real-world progress each country is making towards their carbon-cutting promises made in Glasgow, to prevent backsliding.Antonio Guterres, the United Nations secretary-general, told the presidents and prime ministers gathered that a gap of five years before they reported would be too late.Mr Johnson also announced small pots of money – £40m and £10m respectively – to help island states most threatened by rising oceans, caused by global heating.At an event with Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, he said: “They have done virtually nothing to cause the problem.“They didn’t cause the huge volumes of CO2 to be pumped into the atmosphere. So I would encourage every country that has contributed to pumping CO2 into the air over the last 250 years to join this campaign.” More

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      Ban wet wipes containing plastic, says Labour MP

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      A Labour MP has proposed a new law that would ban plastic in all wet wipes. Fleur Anderson launched a campaign to stop the manufacture and sale of any wet wipes that contain plastic, arguing they are behind 93 per cent of blockages in UK sewers and are contributing to an “ecological disaster.”Her bill will have its first reading on Tuesday and has the support from a number of MPs and environmental organisations. An estimated 11 billion wet wipes are sold each year in the UK and roughly 2.5 billion are flushed away. Fleur Anderson MP said she wants to make it easier for the consumer to make environmentally friendly choices. She added: “I know that parents want to do the right things and all I am saying is that we can make it easier on them and on everyone who relies on the use of wet wipes every day. “Everyone should bin and not flush wet wipes, but either way they contain plastic which gets in the environment and kills wildlife. My Bill comes in the same week as world leaders are meeting for COP26 and will show that the UK can take serious action and ban plastic from wet wipes made and sold in the UK.”Wet wipes are made up of non-woven materials that are bonded together using resins, chemicals or high pressure. This means that they do not break down very easily and, as they are designed to be wet, do not come apart easily in water. In a two hour clean-up run by Thames21 in 2019, 23,000 wet wipes were found on the shore of the River Thames in southwest London. According to Ms Anderson, 90 per cent of the wet wipes used in the UK contain some form of plastic which, when broken down, turn into microplastics which can be ingested by wildlife and enter the food chain and water supply. Last month researchers announced they had discovered microplastics in the blood of animals for what is believed to be the first time ever. Microplastics were found in the blood of cows and pigs in a study carried out by scientists at Vrije University in Amsterdam. The researchers believe that the results could have serious implications for public health. Ms Anderson said: “The plastic in wet wipes breaks down into microplastics, which can be ingested by marine and riverine animals, and are entering into our food chain and water supply. The environmental damage caused by plastic waste is causing an ecological disaster with 100m marine animals dying each year from plastic waste alone.”The MP noted non-plastic alternatives to wet wipes are on the market already. She added the labelling for wet wipes was confusing and “there will be thousands of people out there right now using wet wipes every day with no idea that they are using a single-use plastic an with no idea of the harm that it is doing to our water systems and our marine environments”.Ruth Piggin, head of public affairs at Water UK, said: “We wholly support this Bill and the spotlight it shines on an issue central to improving the health of our rivers and cutting storm overflow spills. Legislative action is needed to ensure manufacturers of wet wipes design plastics out of their products, so the negative environmental impacts of wet wipes are prevented at source.”A spokesperson for the WWF said: “We can become the generation that changes our flushaway culture and begins to restore nature instead of destroying it, but we need government police to lead the way.”Environment minister Lord Goldsmith said during the Environment Bill report stage in the Lords that Defra was working on the issue of wet wipes, but could not give a timeline or specific plans. More

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      UK-Australia trade deal: Did ministers cut climate pledges to clinch agreement?

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      Foreign secretary Liz Truss has poured cold water on reports the UK dropped key climate pledges from its trade deal with Australia – despite other ministers, as well as the Australian PM, previously signalling this was the case. This latest twist follows a leaked government email from September, which revealed a decision by Ms Truss, then the trade secretary, and Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, that the UK government could “drop both of the climate asks” from the text of the post-Brexit FTA (Free Trade Agreement).Among the areas to be removed was “a reference to Paris Agreement temperature goals,” the email stated, however Ms Truss has now claimed this is “fake news”.Pushed on the issue, by Sky News’ Kay Burley, at day one of the UN Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, Ms Truss snapped and said “there is explicit mention of [the Paris agreement] in our trade agreement and what’s more, the Australians have committed now to a mid-century net zero target”.What is the UK accused of doing?Back in September, the leaked Cabinet Office email suggested Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng had secretly dropped a series of climate pledges in order to get the government’s post-Brexit trade deal with Australia over the line. The message revealed a binding section that referenced the “Paris Agreement temperature goals”, as well as multilateral environmental agreements, was scrubbed from the accord after pressure from Australia’s government – which has a notoriously weak record on climate action.It came only a few weeks after Boris Johnson told MPs that any trade deal with Australia would, “include a chapter on trade and environment which not only reaffirms commitments to multilateral environmental agreements, including the Paris Agreement but also commits both parties to collaborate on climate and environmental issues”.But, to get around the issue, Sky News, which first broke the story, reported government sources had confirmed references to temperature would be “implicit” rather than spelt out in the text of the trade treaty. This likely explains Ms Truss’ insistence that there is a mention of the Paris agreement in the FTA, only it doesn’t actually include a specific figure – unlike in the UK-EU trade deal, where temperature commitments are laid out in detail.What has the UK previously said about the allegations?Reactions have been a bit of a mixed bag, and completely at odds with what Australia has said. Mr Kwarteng, while claiming reports about the pledges being removed were false, appeared to concede exact temperature commitments had in fact been wiped. Speaking at a New Statesman regional development conference on 9 September, he said it was “pure politicking” to suggest – as Labour MP Nia Griffiths had – the government signed off on a “lesser deal with Australia which lets them off the hook”.“I didn’t recognise that issue that somehow we’d removed the Paris Agreement language,” he said.However, as he went on there appeared to be some admission that there was no longer an exact figure included in the deal for combatting global warming.“There may have been an issue about specifically putting the 1.5C on the face of the negotiating mandate,” Mr Kwarteng said, “but there was absolutely explicit reference in the Paris Agreement in the negotiating mandate, so I wasn’t quite sure where this story was coming from.”Meanwhile, in a statement issued by a UK government spokesperson, on the same day as Mr Kwarteng’s remarks were made, the opposite was said. “Our ambitious trade deal with Australia will include a substantive article on climate change which reaffirms both parties’ commitments to the Paris Agreement and achieving its goals, including limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees,” it read.“Any suggestion the deal won’t sign up to these vital commitments is completely untrue.”What has Australia said?Scott Morrison, the Australian prime minister, conversely confirmed the reports were true, and told a press conference trade agreements were not the right place for climate targets.Mr Morrison, whose stance on the climate crisis has caused controversy in the past, was asked about the claims the day after they were published by news outlets all around the world.He said simply: “It wasn’t a climate agreement, it was a trade agreement. And I do trade agreements, and in trade agreements, I deal with trade issues. In climate agreements, I deal with climate issues.”“We’re pursuing agreements on clean energy technology with a vast number of countries, and we’ll have agreements about that [at another time,” Mr Morrison added, before insisting other countries should “trust Australia” to abide by its climate commitments.Pressed on the issue by reporters, though, Mr Morrison continued: “The key agreement we’ve made is when we signed up to Paris and the commitments that we made to achieve. Those commitments are clear. And we’ll not only meet them, we’ll beat them.” More

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      Cop26: India’s pledge to slash 1 billion tonnes of emissions lifts gloom, climate experts say

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      India’s pledge to slash carbon emissions by 1 billion tonnes has lifted some of the gloom over Cop26, experts say, after it opened to stark warnings of the terrible price of climate failure.The world’s third-biggest carbon emitter disappointed Downing Street by naming 2070 as its target date to reach net zero – 20 years later than the summit’s aim – but won praise for its first climate plan nevertheless.Hailing “real leadership” that suggested India’s emissions will peak by 2030, Professor Nicholas Stern, of the London School of Economics, said: “This was a very significant moment for the summit.”After China’s refusal to budge on its CO2-cutting plans, India’s announcement offered hope of keeping the Glasgow summit “on track”, The Independent was told.It came as Boris Johnson was criticised after revealing he plans to fly home to London on Tuesday – because it would take him too long to travel by train, according to No 10.Meanwhile, world leaders were told to begin annual reporting of actual progress made towards their climate promises, because a gap of five years will be too late.The call came in a blistering speech in Glasgow by Antonio Guterres, the United Nations secretary-general, who told the presidents and prime ministers: “Enough of brutalising biodiversity.“Enough of killing ourselves with carbon. Enough of treating nature like a toilet. Enough of burning and drilling and mining our way deeper. We are digging our own graves.”Outside the summit, Swedish activist Greta Thunberg told campaigners that only their pressure would save the planet, as she attacked the “blah blah blah” of the leaders behind the security fences.Joe Biden apologised for Donald Trump withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on cutting emissions, saying: “We will demonstrate to the world the United States is not only back at the table but hopefully leading by the power of our example.”India’s role in Glasgow is seen as crucial if the summit is to “keep 1.5C alive” – the limit on the global temperature rise since industrialisation if runaway climate change is to be averted.With the leaders of China, Russia, Brazil, Japan and Turkey absent, all eyes were on Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, as he pledged that 50 per cent of the country’s energy would come from renewable sources by 2030.He also announced that the carbon intensity of the economy – a measure that relates to the amount of goods produced per unit of energy – would be reduced by 45 per cent, not 35 per cent, by 2030.However, Mr Modi said that rich nations must cough up more climate finance to turn pledges from developing nations into reality, after a three-year delay to a long-promised $100bn annual fund.In his response, Mr Johnson made clear he was listening, promising to “work with India” through a new £3bn “clean green initiative” he unveiled yesterday.The prime minister tweeted: “India has today announced ambitious plans for half its energy to come from renewables by 2030. This will cut carbon emissions by a billion tonnes, contributing to a worldwide decade of delivery on climate change.”Climate experts agreed that India’s announcement was potentially “a big deal”, although the details of the pledge were yet to be examined.Shri Rashmi, of the Energy and Resources Institute, said: “A 1 billion tonne reduction in absolute terms is massive. This shows tremendous leadership.”Arunabha Ghosh, chief executive of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, said: “India has clearly put the ball in the court of the developed world. This is real climate action.”And Dustin Benton, of Green Alliance, said: “For India, the big deal is its 2030 commitments. If this means it peaks its emissions in the next 10 years, then the world can stay on track.”Mr Johnson will fly out of Glasgow on Tuesday afternoon, at the end of the leaders’ summit that opened Cop26, leaving open the option of a return next week – if the summit appears to be heading for success. More

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      Boris Johnson to fly from Glasgow to London despite giving climate warning at Cop26

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      Boris Johnson will fly back to London from the Cop26 summit, despite pleading with fellow leaders to act now to save the planet.The prime minister cannot take the train from Glasgow tomorrow because it would take too long, his spokesperson claimed.He defended the decision on the grounds that his plane uses “sustainable” fuel – and said the emissions produced will be offset.It comes after fierce criticism of the government for making flying and driving cheaper in last week’s Budget, widening the gulf with sky-high train fares after a decade of inflation-linked price rises.Mr Johnson is only attending the first two days of the two-week summit, before returning to Westminster for Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons on Wednesday.Asked to justify the decision to fly back, his spokesman said: “The fuel we use for the flight is sustainable and the emissions are offset as well.“It is important that the prime minister is able to move around the country and we have obviously faced significant time restraints.”The spokesman did not set out the nature of the “time constraints” that prevent Mr Johnson from taking a four-and-a-half-hour train journey on Tuesday afternoon.He added that the charter plane to be used emits only half the carbon dioxide of other aircraft, but was unable to say what type of plane it was.However, critics of flying internally – in a small country such as the UK – point out that a plane still emits seven times the carbon dioxide, per person, than a train journey.Mr Johnson has refused to set out what personal sacrifices – if any – he is making to cut his own carbon footprint, declining to say if he is eating less meat for example.Just hours earlier, setting out the Cop26 challenge, he told the opening ceremony: “The people who will judge us are children not yet born – and their children. We mustn’t fluff our lines or miss our cue.“If we fail they will not forgive us. They will judge us with a bitterness and a resentment that eclipses any climate activist of today. And they will be right.”Explaining the flight, the spokesman added: “The plane is one of the most carbon-efficient planes of its size in the world. It produces 50 per cent less CO2 emissions than, for example, the larger Voyager plane [often used by Mr Johnson].“We use a specific type of fuel which is a blend of 35 per cent sustainable aviation fuel and 65 per cent normal fuel – which is the maximum amount allowed – and, obviously emissions, will be offset.”Denying the charge of “hypocrisy”, the spokesman said the UK is “leading the way in the in the commitments needed and investment required in order to get to net zero”.Meanwhile, chancellor Rishi Sunak defended his decision to cut air passenger duty on domestic flights on Monday, claiming it would be “offset” by raising the duty on long-haul flights abroad.Grilled by MPs on the Treasury Committee, the chancellor dismissed the idea of using aviation taxes to help achieve net zero – arguing that investment in sustainable aviation fuel was more important.“I assume people will be flying for years to come all over the place,” Mr Sunak told MPs.“The best way to solve emissions from that problem is trying to figure out what a sustainable aviation fuel looks like. The duties are not, one way or another, going to do anything.” More

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      Cop26: Britain tens of billions short on its own green investment

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      The UK’s ambitious target to become a net-zero economy is in doubt as it hosts the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow. The chancellor’s budget fell as much as £21bn short of the investment needed to meet the government’s own carbon reduction targets up to 2025, according to exclusive analysis shared with The Independent.The revelation from the Resolution Foundation follows Boris Johnson’s claim that Cop26 will have failed unless the world has committed to “halve emissions by the end of this decade”.To meet its own carbon goals the government would need to invest an additional sum of at least close to £28bn by the end of 2025. Yet it committed just £7.2bn of fresh funds in Wednesday’s budget. Environmental think tank The Green Alliance separately calculated that the spending gap was closer to £55bn based on their own assessment.“Public funding for net zero remains well short of that needed to meet the government’s own targets. This is particularly acute in support to decarbonise the nation’s homes, including large gaps for households on lower incomes,” said Jonathan Marshall, senior economist at the Resolution Foundation.One senior Treasury official told The Independent that the Treasury had not been honest about how much money was being committed to net-zero efforts by lumping in old investment to cover up a shortfall in additional spending. A lack of transparency about the real costs of going green is a political challenge for the Conservative Party ahead of the next election. The gap of around £21bn could make it harder for Rishi Sunak to cut taxes while also meeting his fiscal rules. And extra green taxes on households would put fresh pressure on families.The chancellor shocked environmental groups and international partners by cutting taxes on aviation last Wednesday. The independent spending watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), said that the step had made the job of getting to net zero “more difficult”.A senior Treasury official told The Independent that there had been clear internal dissent at the decision, coming ahead of the UK playing host to Cop26 and after unveiling the net zero plan earlier this month. “The decision is at best inconsistent and at worst a disgrace”, the official said. They added that they had not previously engaged with the media but had made an exception because they felt that it was a moral imperative.They described a “duplicity of presenting a [net zero] strategy with the one hand and making it harder to reduce carbon emissions with the other”.Shadow business secretary Ed Miliband told The Independent: “The chancellor could barely bring himself to mention action on the climate crisis when we needed it to be front and centre of his Budget.“He is not committing anything like the investment required to genuinely tackle the climate emergency.“A Budget with no proper plan for home insulation, no help for our steel industry to go green and a Budget that cuts air passenger duty on domestic flights is a greenwash Budget – not the green Budget we needed.”Mr Miliband added that Labour would invest £28bn a year this decade on green issues.The government has said it will require significant private investment alongside public funds to turn carbon goals into a reality. At the recent Global Investment Summit Boris Johnson called on some of the world’s most powerful investors to put trillions of dollars towards going green in the UK. But estimates by economists suggests that at the present rate of investment it appears the government is expecting the private sector to provide around 80 per cent of the required cash. This is unrealistic, several said; the OBR has modelled 80 per cent of funds coming from the public sector dropping to 50 per cent by 2050. “While government rhetoric is in the right ballpark on net zero, the investment plan does not yet match up,” said Phil McNally, senior net-zero researcher at the Tony Blair Institute. “The state should not be expected to put up all the investment required for the net-zero transition. The government needs to find the right balance of public investment and policy and regulatory frameworks that will draw as much private investment as possible to fill the gap.”He added that increased public spending, as well as innovative policy mechanisms, are needed to attract private investment for the net-zero transition. Still, funding net zero will likely prove a challenge for all political parties going forward. Will Tanner, director of centre-right think tank, Onward, said that polling carried out by his organisation showed the “desire from voters is actually for further action [on cutting carbon] but where the difficulty does come is when they’re confronted with the costs”. A government spokesperson said: “The Budget and spending review confirmed that since March 2021 the government will have committed a total of £30bn of domestic investment for the green industrial revolution. This includes £26bn of capital investment to support our net zero strategy.“The funding will ensure we’re on track to meet our carbon budgets and reach net zero by 2050.” More

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      Cop26: Boris Johnson tells world leaders children of tomorrow ‘will not forgive us’ if we fail

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      Children not yet born “will not forgive” today’s world leaders if they fail to confront the climate emergency, Boris Johnson has told the Cop26 summit.Opening the landmark event in Glasgow, the prime minister pointed out the young had a far greater stake in the looming calamity than the people in the room – whose average age was “over 60”.“The people who will judge us are children not yet born – and their children,” Mr Johnson said, adding: “We mustn’t fluff our lines or miss our cue.“If we fail, they will not forgive us. They will judge us with a bitterness and a resentment that eclipses any of the climate activist of today. And they will be right.”The appeal came as the prime minister likened the climate crisis to a James Bond movie – except the “tragedy is that this is not a movie and the doomsday device is real”.The summit opens against the gloomy backdrop of the G20 group of the biggest economies failing to make fresh climate commitments after their two-day gathering in Rome.A final communique agreed merely to “enhance when necessary” plans to cut carbon emissions by 2030 – the cut-off point for averting disaster, scientists say.Far from agreeing to “consign coal to history” – the UK’s aim for Cop26 – it sets no date for phasing out the fossil fuel, which will happen only “as soon as possible”.And the G20 spurned the UK’s call to commit to net zero emissions by 2050 – but no date was set, because big emitters China, India and Russia have rejected itMr Johnson told the opening ceremony of the terrible consequences of failing to limit the global temperature rise since industrialisation to 1.5°C – something he has admitted cannot be achieved in Glasgow.“Two degrees more and we jeopardise the food supply for hundreds of millions of people, as crops wither, locusts swarm.“Three degrees and you can add more wildfires and cyclones – twice as many of them, five times as many droughts and 36 times as many heatwaves.“Four degrees and we say goodbye to whole cities – Miami, Alexandria, Shanghai – all lost beneath the waves.“And the longer we fail to act, the worse it gets and the higher the price when we are eventually forced by catastrophe to act.”The prime minister pleaded: “If we don’t get serious about climate change today, it will be too late for our children to do so tomorrow.”But Rachel Reeves, Labour’s shadow chancellor, accused Mr Johnson of hypocrisy, after a budget that failed to fund the green transition while making flying and driving cheaper.“The PM says it’s one minute to midnight on climate, but he and the chancellor act like its 2.15 in the afternoon,” she tweeted.“The chancellor ignores the huge costs of not acting and won’t use green jobs to grow our economy – while the PM is all talk and no action.” More

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      Cop26: Boris Johnson offers extra £1bn for climate crisis fund, but only if UK economy bounces back

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      Boris Johnson 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.The pledge comes alongside a warning from the prime minister that it is “one minute to midnight” in the fight against the climate disaster and an appeal for the world “to act now”.“If we don’t get serious about climate change today, it will be too late for our children to do so tomorrow,” Mr Johnson is expected to tell 120 world leaders at the Cop26 opening ceremony in Glasgow.But the United Nations summit gets underway with some of those leaders being accused of having already “fluffed their lines” after the G20 summit in Rome failed to beef up commitments to cut carbon emissions fast enough.A gloomy prime minister has downgraded his hopes for Glasgow – calling it only a stopping point towards halting climate change, with “no chance” of a deal to keep global temperature warming to 1.5C.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.Now Mr 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 cash would fund programmes for developing nations to cope with the devastating impact of climate change, helping to protect nature and supporting a transition to clean and green energy.In Glasgow, the prime minister will also say: “Humanity has long since run down the clock on climate change. It’s one minute to midnight and we need to act now.”Mr Johnson will add: “We have to move from talk and debate and discussion to concerted, real-world action on coal, cars, cash and trees.“Not more hopes and targets and aspirations, valuable though they are, but clear commitments and concrete timetables for change.” More