COP26: Boris Lines Up His Critics To Placate Green Blob

Boris Johnson is expected to launch the UK’s COP26 strategy on Tuesday, at an event with Sir David Attenborough, Greta Thunberg, Mark Carney, Nicholas Stern, Patricia Espinosa.

Concern has been raised over Westminster’s handling of the crucial UN climate change summit planned for Glasgow following the shock sacking of the woman in charge.

Former climate minister Claire Perry O’Neill has criticised the UK Government after being removed from her role as “president” of the November event.

Expressing her sadness over losing the job, O’Neill (pictured below) added that Westminster could not cope with the fact that an independent body was managing the conference preparations.

She went on to point out that No 10 has not held a single climate change meeting since the unit was formed. Sources close to her claim the UK’s preparations are in “disarray”, with cabinet ministers fighting for control over the COP 26 summit and unable to agree on a final budget.

Leader of Glasgow City Council Susan Aitken said the news of O’Neill’s sacking was “very concerning”.

The row follows Boris Johnson’s comments that he did not want First Minister Nicola Sturgeon “anywhere near” the event and insisted the Union flag should be prominently displayed.

“I want to see a Union flag – I don’t want to see Nicola Sturgeon anywhere near it, because the Scottish Nationalist Party [sic] didn’t secure that summit in Glasgow, it was the United Kingdom Government,” he said.

Up to 30,000 delegates are expected for the conference which will be the most important on the climate since the Paris Agreement was passed in 2015. Pledges countries made then will be reviewed.

Nations agreed in Paris to a legally binding commitment to keep global temperature rises to no more than 2C above pre-industrial levels but also offered national pledges to cut or curb their greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

O’Neill’s role will now be taken over by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the UK Government has confirmed.

A statement from the Cabinet Office said Johnson was “grateful” for the work O’Neill has done.

“Preparations will continue at pace for the summit, and a replacement will be confirmed shortly,” it said. “Going forward, this will be a ministerial role.”

The announcement has come as a shock to environmental and business groups who have been working with O’Neill but it is understood that she had become increasingly fed up by Johnson’s lack of engagement with the event. She has been pushing for an agenda and played a prominent role at the last UN summit in Madrid in December.

She has emphasised the importance of the forthcoming Glasgow event and has said the world has “one shot” to take meaningful action on climate change. If this fails, she said, people would question the whole process…

O’Neill announced her decision to resign as an MP last September, citing the pressures of the COP26 presidency, and stood down in December’s General Election. That left her outside Cabinet discussions.

William Hague, Zac Goldsmith and Michael Howard have all been touted as her possible replacement.

Johnson is expected to make his first public intervention on the issue on Tuesday, when he will launch the UK’s COP26 strategy, at an event with Sir David Attenborough, teenage climate change campaigner Greta Thunberg the outgoing governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, climate expert Lord Nicholas Stern and the UN’s climate chief, Patricia Espinosa.