Latest reports suggest that the UK is in danger of ending its presidency of the UN climate talks next month in disunity and disarray amid cabinet rifts on green policy, and confusion over who will attend the Cop27 summit.
Disagreements over climate policy threaten to hamper the UK’s ability to hold together the fragile coalition of developed and developing countries it built at the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow last year.
Failure to do so, it is believed will not only cast a pall over the UK’s achievements there but will add further tensions to already troubled global climate talks.
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Liz Truss has still not said whether she will attend Cop27, which will commence in just under a month. However, the business secretary, Jacob Rees-Mogg, will go – to the dismay of green groups because he supports fracking, expanding oil and gas production, and has cast doubt on climate science.
The prime minister is also reported to have effectively prevented King Charles from attending the summit, despite his presence at previous Cops. Even worse from campaigners’ point of view, in her speech to the Conservative party conference on Wednesday Truss described environment groups as part of an “anti-growth coalition” she vowed to vanquish.
Although Truss and Rees-Mogg are nominally committed to meeting the UK’s legally binding target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050, the target received scant attention in the mini-budget and their main policy for easing the energy crisis is to expand fossil fuels.
The cabinet minister who acted as president of the Cop26 summit, Alok Sharma is also reported to have broken ranks to call for King Charles to attend Cop27, as has the climate minister Zac Goldsmith.
Sharma, who remained neutral during the Tory leadership contest, may struggle to retain a seat in Truss’s cabinet after Cop27 when the UK hands over the presidency to Egypt.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian government this week took the highly unusual step of warning the UK against “backtracking” on its climate commitments, and pointedly re-extended its invitation to King Charles.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
