Boris Johnson warns the world not to get ‘wobbly’ over battle to halt climate change
- Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the world was failing’ in the battle to stop climate change as the cost of living crisis continues at the Cop27 summit
- Mr Johnson hit out at members of the Tory party at the conference in Egypt
- His comments will be seen as swipe at the ex-PM Liz Truss and Jacob Rees-Mogg
Boris Johnson yesterday warned against going ‘weak and wobbly’ over tackling climate change as the cost of living crisis bites.
The former Prime Minister said the world was ‘failing’ in the battle to stop global temperatures rising and insisted that governments could not allow the situation to slip backwards.
Speaking at the Cop27 climate summit in Egypt, Mr Johnson hit out at members of the Tory Party who argue that soaring energy bills mean the UK can no longer afford to go green at the same pace.
Speaking at the Cop27 climate summit in Egypt, Mr Johnson hit out at members of the Tory Party who argue that soaring energy bills mean the UK can no longer afford to go green at the same pace
He said: ‘People have drawn the conclusion that the whole project of net zero needs to be delayed, mothballed and put on ice – for instance we need to reopen coal-fired power stations and frack the hell out of the British countryside. This is a moment where we really have to tackle this nonsense head-on.’
Net zero means reaching the point where the amount of carbon the UK adds to the atmosphere is no more than the amount it removes.
Mr Johnson’s comments will be seen as a swipe at ex-PM Liz Truss and her energy secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg, who briefly lifted the ban on fracking before it was reimposed by new Premier Rishi Sunak last month.
Mr Johnson said the UK was right to continue trying to exploit oil and gas reserves in the North Sea, saying they would be needed during the ‘transition’ to a greener economy.
But he added: ‘This is not the moment to abandon the campaign for net zero. This is not the moment to turn our backs on renewable technology.’
He warned the battle against climate change had become one of the ‘collateral victims’ of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with countries questioning the goal of cutting emissions at a time of soaring energy prices and rampant inflation.
He said: ‘The risk is some people will go weak and wobbly on net zero. We can’t have that.’
Asked whether he lies in bed worrying that the world is failing on the issue, he replied: ‘We are [failing]. Be in no doubt – at the current rate we are.’
The former Prime Minister said the world was ‘failing’ in the battle to stop global temperatures rising and insisted that governments could not allow the situation to slip backwards
He said world leaders had so far failed to meet pledges given at last year’s Cop26 summit in Glasgow to slow the pace of deforestation. Mr Johnson’s attendance at the United Nations climate summit has been widely seen as a factor in Mr Sunak’s decision to drop his previous plan to skip the event.
The ex-PM stressed he was not acting as a back-seat driver, telling a fringe event: ‘I’m a foot soldier, a spear carrier. I’m here in a purely supportive role and to remind the world what we did at Glasgow.’ He said the new Government ‘understands’ what needs to be done to tackle the climate threat and ‘wants to take it forward’.
Downing Street said there were no plans for Mr Sunak to meet Mr Johnson during the summit. But the new PM told The Sun he hoped he would ‘bump into’ him at some point, adding: ‘Isn’t it great we have a PM and a former PM both at Cop? That says something special about our country.’
He added: ‘Boris has been a stalwart champion of building a greener future – he deserves praise and credit for that. It’s great that he’s there.’
Mr Johnson also waded into the row over whether the West should make payments to developing countries after pouring carbon into the air following the industrial revolution. Former Labour leader Ed Miliband had called on the UK to acknowledge its ‘historical responsibility’ and send cash to nations hit by climate change, but rejected the term ‘reparation’.
Mr Johnson said: ‘Two hundred years ago, we started it all and there’s no question that, per capita, people in the UK have put out an awful lot of carbon into the atmosphere.
‘But what we cannot do is…make up for that with some kind of reparations. We simply do not have the financial resources – and no country could.’
He said the world should ‘look to the future’, adding: ‘The best way to fix this is not to look backwards and try to tot up some bill for loss and damage that the UK or other countries have done, but try to look at what the UK can do to help to take countries forward and help them achieve the carbon reductions and green technologies they need.’
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