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Banks and pension funds will still be able to invest in coal power under Rishi Sunak’s plans to force them to go green, a Treasury minister has admitted.John Glen said the chancellor’s initiative – one of the key announcements at the Cop26 summit – would give people “confidence” that finance is behind the shift to net zero carbon emissions.But, asked if firms could be given “the new green gold standard” and still invest in new coal production, he replied: “Yes, that will be possible.”The admission will fuel criticism that the impact of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), covering assets worth £95 trillion, has been exaggerated.Banks made similar pledges at the 2015 Paris climate summit that were watered down – allowing huge investment in fossil fuels as the world bounces back from the Covid pandemic.One US bank, BNY Mellon, was in talks to sign up to a net zero industry initiative, yet its subsidiary was preparing to invest in a coal mine in Australia, The Financial Times reported.On BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, it was suggested to Mr Glen that such a situation “makes a mockery” of the standard being unveiled in Glasgow.But the Treasury minister said: “What we can’t do is just press a button and, on day one, there will be a transition.“In the UK, we have a responsibility to take a lead in this – obviously we can’t account for every company that’s listed in other jurisdictions.”Economists estimate that about $100tn of investment is needed in the next three decades to meet the net zero goal, meaning GFANZ will – in theory – provide enough cash to achieve the goal.It will see all listed companies in Britain forced to produce their own binding plans to reduce carbon emissions or face fines, Mr Sunak announced ahead of an event at Cop26.A task force under the control of the Financial Services Authority will set standards, to ensure proper checks that firms are enforcing the pledges they have made.In Glasgow, Mr Sunak said 40 per cent of global assets will be aligned to the 1.5C limit for global warming, adding: “Six years ago Paris set the ambition. Today in Glasgow we’re providing the investment we need to deliver that ambition.”But Lucie Pinson, executive director of the Reclaim Finance, said: “Not a single rule to prevent even one dollar from being invested in the expansion of the fossil fuel sector.“Once again, the financial sector is willing to puff itself up with hot air commitments instead of enacting the concrete cuts in oil, gas and coal financing we really need.”Sam Alvis, of the Green Alliance thinktank, welcomed “definite progress”, but warned: “Trillions of dollars are still flowing to fossil fuels every day.“Governments will need to regulate companies, not just publish transition plans but have strict criteria with legal bite on their credibility and pace.” More

Upbeat climate experts are hailing “momentum” towards a deal to halt runaway climate change, after a series of carbon-cutting announcements at the Cop26 summit.They are echoing Boris Johnson who said he is now “cautiously optimistic” that the global temperature rise can be limited to 1.5°C – just days after lashing out at world leaders for their lack of action.The mood has shifted after India’s breakthrough pledge to take 1 billion tonnes of CO2 out of the atmosphere by 2030 and the agreement to halt deforestation across most of the globe.Those moves were bolstered, on Tuesday, by almost 100 countries committing to slash methane emissions by 30 per cent – and a deal to hand $8.5bn to South Africa to help it ditch coal as a fuel source.Before leaving Glasgow, Mr Johnson used a favourite football analogy to say the world is no longer 1-5 down in the fight against the climate emergency, but is making “progress”.“We’ve pulled back a goal, or perhaps even two, and I think we are going to be able to take this thing to extra-time,” the prime minister told a press conference.Significantly, Rachel Kyte, a former United Nations climate change special envoy, echoed that view, saying: “It’s very clear, by mid-afternoon of the second day, that there is momentum.“If we can carry this forward for the next 10 days, it puts us in a better place than we thought we would be coming in.”Mohamed Nasheed, the respected former Maldives president and a UN “Champion of Earth” was even more bullish, saying: “When you add up all the numbers, I believe that 1.5C is now reachable.”Cop26 government officials are also encouraged by Vietnam’s pledge to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, believing it will put pressure on China to move further and faster.Despite the blow of Chinese premier Xi Jinping staying away, his envoy in Glasgow, Xie Zhenhua, was praised for being highly-committed and hard-working.But all involved know they still face a herculean task to strike an agreement to achieve only a 1.5C rise, with 2.1C forecast even if all pre-Cop26 commitments are kept.Just 7.5 per cent of predicted annual greenhouse gas emissions would be chopped off by 2030 – far from the 47 per cent reduction that is needed, the UN warned.Although India’s shift to peaking emissions by 2030 might take out 1 billion gigatonnes of CO2, some 28 billion gigatonnes must be removed by the end of the decade.Ed Miliband, Labour’s shadow business secretary, poured scorn on Mr Johnson’s comments, saying: “For all the prime minister’s fantasy football, we’re still a very long way behind.“There has been some progress, but the next 10 days needs to move beyond the pre-packaged announcements. We need a real negotiation to secure the concrete plans for this decisive decade to keep 1.5C alive.”Strikingly, at the press conference the prime minister also took on critics – including on the Tory benches – who argue the green transition is too costly and will be unpopular.“If we don’t do this, if we don’t fix our climate, it will be an economic catastrophe as well as an environmental catastrophe,” he said.“We can use this moment to trigger a greater growth, and greater prosperity, but do it in a green way. I do think people get that.” More

Boris Johnson’s government has been urged to push for an expanded package of financial “reparations” for countries facing the worst damage from the climate crisis.Although wealthy nations have committed to providing $100bn (£73bn) a year for developing countries by 2023, most of the money will come in the form of loans.The Green Party said £50bn a year was needed in grants for the poorest countries by the end of decade – and called on the UK to take special responsibility for “reparation” payments as a former colonial power.Greens’ co-leader Carla Denyer said a far more generous climate finance plan was needed to help low-income countries, or the Cop26 climate talks in Glasgow will end in failure.“Real leadership and responsibility means pledging £50bn a year by 2030 – in grants, not loans – to support low-income countries adapt to the impacts of the climate crisis and help them transition to a clean green future.”She added: “It is essential that climate finance is paid in the form of grants rather than becoming another opportunity to exploit the countries of the Global South.”The prime minister has made climate finance for developing nations one of his four top priorities for the crucial Cop26 summit, using the slogan “coal, cars, cash and trees”.But there was anger when it emerged last week that wealthy nations would not achieve a long-promised $100bn annual target for the fund for developing countries until 2023 – three years later than expected.The UK is currently contributing £2.3bn a year, but as The Independent revealed in July, the cash will be swiped from the overseas aid budget – despite a requirement that it be “additional” to current aid spending.Campaigners have warned that without a clear means of accounting, countries are free to decide what they consider to be climate finance as part of the $100bn pledge. The funding channels include developed countries’ aid budgets, as well as private money and loans.The Green Party claimed that western countries which have historically benefited from exploitation of developing countries which now face the most damage from climate change should be “compensated” with transparent grants.Azzees Minott, chair of the Greens of Colour group, pointed to Britain’s leading role in the industrial revolution and emissions from the spoils of Empire. “Britain has a special responsibility to the world for historic emissions that are causing loss and damage across the Global South,” she said.Co-leader Ms Denyer added: “Boris Johnson’s pledge doesn’t go far enough, and worse still, rings hollow given the huge cut his government recently made to the international aid budget.”The decision to cut the overseas aid budget from 0.7 to 0.5 per cent of the national income has undermined its chances of success at Cop26, development experts told MPs on Tuesday.Mark Miller, from the Overseas Development Institute, told the international development committee: “It’s the ability to demonstrate global leadership. At this time in particular, during this once-in-a-generation development crisis, the UK has not been able to take leading commitments.”The UK government’s top adviser has also warned the cut was likely to damage negotiations at the summit.Lord Deben, chair of the Climate Change Committee, told The Independent on the eve of the conference that the UK had “caused climate change more than anyone else”, but not done enough to secure global funding for those now hit hardest by its effects. More

Boris Johnson is to hold a press conference at 5pm at the climate summit Cop26 summit in Glasgow, No 10 has said.It comes after a series of gloomy remarks from the prime minister in recent days about the ability to thrash out an agreement at the conference to prevent global temperatures from rising more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.Ahead of the event, Mr Johnson warned fellow leaders that if the summit failed “the whole thing fails” and the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement would have “crumpled at the first reckoning”.However, on the second day of the summit, ministers struck a more upbeat tone, hailing a “significant breakthrough” on a deforestation agreement, with more than 100 leaders pledging to end the “great chainsaw massacre” of the world’s forests.Representing countries that are home to 85 per cent of the planet’s forests – including Brazil – the leaders committed to “halt and reverse” deforestation by the end of the decade at an event convened by the prime minister on Tuesday.Mr Johnson told delegates: “Today is not just a vital win in the struggle to contain global temperature increases, it is also a huge economic opportunity.“This is the long-term sustainable path to maintaining to ending the loss of our forests, protecting our sacred biodiversity and helping to keep alive the ambition of 1.5 degrees by the end of the century.”Earlier, a No 10 spokesperson suggested the prime minister will also highlight other announcements at the summit so far, including commitment by almost 100 countries to cut back on the potent greenhouse gas methane.Nations agreed on Tuesday to slash emissions from methane by 30 per cent by 2030, when compared to levels in 2020, in what was described as a “game-changing commitment” by the US president Joe Biden.The prime minister’s official spokesperson also claimed: “I think we are starting to see some significant momentum over the past day and a half.” “The prime minister will remain closely involved in that work over the next couple of weeks,” they added.“This is not a foregone conclusion. What we have seen are some very early signs that we are beginning to make progress, but we are not complacent. There is a huge amount to do.” More

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

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

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

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