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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

Boris Johnson has lashed out at world leaders for failing to make the commitments needed to halt the climate emergency, as he spoke at the close of the G20 summit.A visibly frustrated prime minister admitted the Rome gathering had fallen short of what was required to put the Cop26 summit on course for success in Glasgow.Promises made to tackle the climate crisis are “starting to sound hollow”, Mr Johnson told a press conference – when the “solution is clear”.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”, the prime minister warned.“We have made reasonable progress at the G20, all things considered – but it is not enough,” Mr Johnson admitted.For the first time, he named-and-shamed the US for not contributing enough money to the $100bn climate crisis fund for poor nations, saying it was “well down”.And on the prospects for Cop26, the prime minister said: “If Glasgow fails then the whole thing fails. The Paris Agreement will have crumpled at the first reckoning.”It would be “holed beneath the waterline”, he warned, calling it “just a piece of paper” and adding: “We need to fill that piece of paper – to populate it with real progress.”Mr Johnson was speaking after G20 leaders 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 the Glasgow summit – it sets no date for phasing out the fossil fuel, which will happen only “as soon as possible”.There is also no deadline for ending fossil fuel subsidies, which would have soared since the easing of the Covid pandemic, with an aim to achieve that only “over the medium term”.In the run-up to Cop26, the UK had urged all countries to follow it in committing to net zero emissions by 2050 – but the communique also fails to do that.The omission reflects the reality that China, the world’s biggest carbon emitter, has set a target date of 2060, while India and Russia are also not committed to the 2050 date.Greenpeace attacked the lack of progress, warning that “if the G20 was a dress rehearsal for Cop26, then world leaders fluffed their lines”.“Their communique was weak, lacking both ambition and vision, and simply failed to meet the moment,” said Jennifer Morgan, the organisation’s executive director.Mohamed Adow, director of the think tank Power Shift Africa, said: “This weak statement from the G20 is what happens when developing countries who are bearing the full force of the climate crisis are shut out of the room.“The world’s biggest economies comprehensively failed to put climate change on the top of the agenda ahead of Cop26 in Glasgow.”A downbeat Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, tweeted: “I leave Rome with my hopes unfulfilled – but at least they are not buried.”Mr Johnson said: “Just 12 G20 members have committed to reach net zero by 2050 or earlier.“Barely half of us have submitted improved plans for how we will cut carbon emissions since the Paris Summit in 2015.“And we have also failed to meet our commitment to provide $100bn a year to support developing countries to grow in a clean and sustainable way.“The UN says emissions will rise by 15 per cent by 2030 – and they need to halve by then.”Accusing the world’s first industrialised nations of “not doing their fair share of the work”, Mr Johnson added: “If we are going to prevent Cop26 from being a failure then that must change.” More

Cop26 president Alok Sharma has swerved questions over the prospect of the Cambo oilfield receiving approval, saying: “That’s not my decision, that’s not my role.”It comes after Mr Sharma’s speech at the climate summit in Glasgow was interrupted by activists – branding him a “hypocrite” for the government’s support of the oilfield to the west of the Shetland islands.If approved, the project would produce up to 170 million barrels of oil between 2025 and 2050 and the government has faced intense pressure to scrap the plans, or risk damaging it’s efforts to lead the Cop26 conference.Appearing on the BBC’s Andrew Marr programme, Mr Sharma defended the UK’s efforts to decarbonise the economy as he dodged a question over whether giving the Cambo oil field the green light will help Britain demonstrate its “moral authority”.“In terms of oil and gas, we’ve been very clear, we’ve said in terms of granting any future licences there will be a climate compatibility checkpoint,” he stressed.“Any licences that are granted will have to be compatible with our legal requirement to be net zero by 2050.”Quizzed about an International Energy Agency (IEA) report that said no new oil or gas establishments could be set up after this year if the UK was to achieve its net zero target, Mr Sharma added: “The IEA report also makes clear that, even in a net zero scenario, there is some element of oil and gas in that.”When pressed on whether it was within his power to stop the development, Mr Sharma said his role, as Cop26 president, was to “bring together consensus” amongst 200 countries attending the summit for the next two weeks in Glasgow.“That is something that is being considered – there was a consultation and inquiry around all of that – I’m not going to go into that particular issue,” he added.“When there is an announcement, an agreement, I’m very happy to come back and talk to you.”Lord Deben, the chair of the UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC), has previously suggested of Cambo: “We really do have to face up to the issue that there may be some occasions where we think that development could be of a kind which would help our move towards net zero to such a degree that it’s worth doing. “But we always have to remember that the moment you do any of that, you’re setting an example that will be quoted throughout the world as showing this kind of development is acceptable.”Asked about the remarks, Mr Sharma told the BBC: “Well, as I said, that’s no my decision, that’s not my role.“When a decision is made I’m very happy to come back and discuss it. They’ve [CCC] also said the net zero strategy that we have produced is a landmark strategy globally and it’s one other countries will look at and take head of.”Responding to the interview, senior Labour frontbencher David Lammy said: “Bullshit is a major contributor to climate change so it’s exasperating to see this response from Alok Sharma. “This crisis demands leadership and action, not more hot air. Labour would lead by example setting a hard-edged timetable to end oil and gas exploration.”The Green MP Caroline Lucas added: “Alok Sharma unable to defend the indefensible – he was doing well on Marr until he had to answer why his government is going ahead with a new oil field at Cambs.” More