Latest reports suggest that Ed Miliband, UK’s energy security and net zero secretary will take personal control of the UK’s negotiations at vital international climate talks, in stark contrast to his Tory predecessors.
Miliband will attend Cop29, this year’s UN climate summit which takes place in Azerbaijan this November to head the UK’s delegation and meet political leaders from around the world. Senior figures in climate diplomacy welcomed the move and said UK leadership would be vital to what is expected to be a tricky and fraught UN climate summit this year.
Christiana Figueres, who is the former UN climate chief who presided over the Paris agreement, now founding partner of the Global Optimism thinktank, said: “Ed Miliband has proven experience at Cops and all matters related to those multilateral negotiations. Throughout 14 years he has kept his vigilant eye on the ups and downs, and will not need to start from scratch at all.”
Under the last government, Cop was largely left to junior ministers, despite the importance and far-reaching nature of the negotiations. Graham Stuart, the climate minister who led for the UK at Cop28, left the summit at an important moment to fly back to the UK for a vote on Rwanda, but returned for the finish.
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Figueres said: “The fact that the multilateral negotiations will be led by the secretary of energy himself instead of delegating to a junior minister denotes recognition of the importance of the process as we near the halfway point in this decisive decade. We could not be more pleased with the news.”
Heads of state and government also attend Cops, though usually only for a few days at the start. Last year, Rishi Sunak spent longer flying to and from Cop28 in Dubai than he spent on the ground at the conference, while other world leaders spent several days there. Sunak also snubbed other key climate talks and was said by experts to have damaged the UK’s reputation for climate leadership with his U-turns on climate action.
Keir Starmer also visited Cop28 and spent time with senior leaders including John Kerry, then a US presidential envoy.
Governments are preparing for one of the most difficult UN climate summits in recent years in Baku. At the top of the agenda will be climate finance for developing countries, to help them cut greenhouse gas emissions and cope with the effects of extreme weather.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
