In a jab at members of his own Conservative party, the former UK prime minister will contrast the success and spirit of optimism at Cop26 in Glasgow last November with the failures of governments – including the UK – to deliver on promises since then. “As rising oil and gas prices – and accompanying global inflation, increases in fertilizer and food costs, have had an impact here and everywhere, they have led some naysayers to a corrosive net zero cynicism,” I will warn . Immediately after the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow ended last November, some right-wing members of the UK’s ruling Conservative party – including many who initially backed Johnson for prime minister in the 2019 general election but combined to push him out of power in July – began trying to use the climate emergency as a “culture war” issue. They backed the UK’s target of net zero emissions by 2050 and set up a net zero scrutiny group of MPs to advocate for relaxing or rejecting the legally binding target. Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, which has sent already soaring gas prices to record highs, has fueled their efforts. Johnson, whose supporters have long claimed him as the champion of the Greens, will tell an audience at Cop27 on Monday: “We have to end the defeatism that has crept in since last year, we have to end Putin’s energy blackmail, we have to continue our campaign to end global dependence on hydrocarbons, and if we maintain the spirit of creative and Promethean optimism that we saw in Paris and Glasgow, then we can maintain [the] 1.5C [limit on global temperature rises] live.” Johnson is attending Cop27 as a guest of the Egyptian hosts. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will also attend the Cop27 summit, having reversed his initial decision to snub the summit, which will be attended by 110 world leaders. He will have meetings with French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Kenyan President William Ruto. Rishi Sunak arrives in Sharm El Sheikh. The Prime Minister will pledge the UK to triple its funding to help countries adapt to extreme weather. Photo: Stefan Rousseau/PA He is also expected to raise with the Egyptian government the issue of Alaa Abd El-Fattah, a British-Egyptian activist and blogger who is on hunger strike in an Egyptian prison. Sunak will pledge the UK to triple its funding for countries adapting to the effects of extreme weather, from £500m in 2019 to £1.5bn in 2025, but there will be no new money to fund the climate – spending will come from the £11.6bn budget already agreed before Cop26. Sunak will say: “The world came together in Glasgow with one last chance to create a plan to limit global warming to 1.5C [above pre-industrial levels]. The question today is: can we summon the collective will to deliver on these promises? I believe we can. By honoring the commitments we made in Glasgow, we can turn our fight against climate change into a global mission for new jobs and clean growth. And we can bequeath our children a greener planet and a more prosperous future. This is a legacy we could be proud of.” He is expected to herald progress on a UK initiative to conserve the world’s existing forests and on ways to help communities where many jobs currently depend on fossil fuels move to clean energy, the so-called “just transition”. Sir Keir Starmer, who is not at Cop27, will also mark the start of the conference by putting forward proposals for net zero sector groups focusing on steel, cement, ceramics and chemicals in areas such as Humber and Teesside, Merseyside, Grangemouth and south Wales. . Labour’s proposals would lead to at least £1bn more investment in green industry in the UK than under Tory plans, Starmer will say. The money would come from a proposed National Wealth Fund. Labor accused the government of “dragging its feet on climate at every turn”, leaving British industry behind in the fight for the clean and efficient technology of the future. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Ed Miliband, shadow climate change and net zero secretary, said: “The Tories have shown us over the last 12 years that they simply don’t understand the scale of [climate] urgent. If Rishi Sunak cannot provide leadership on the world stage, we cannot expect him to lead at home.” Labour’s policies include an energy price freeze, paid for by a more efficient tax, along with a green welfare plan for a national wealth fund and a national energy champion, GB Energy, to invest in renewables and nuclear power . Miliband said: “This is a plan that will deliver jobs, support industries, tackle the cost of living and protect our home for future generations by tackling the climate crisis. There is a global race for the jobs of the future and Tory Britain is falling behind.” Around 110 heads of state and government are expected to gather in Sharm El Sheikh on Monday for a two-day summit of world leaders at the start of a fortnight of climate talks. The negotiations got off to a rocky start when countries stayed up into the early hours of Sunday morning fighting over what should be on the conference’s agenda. The vexed issue of loss and damage will be a formal agenda item for the talks, which will allow for discussions on how to help poor countries recover from the extreme weather disasters they are already experiencing. On Sunday, the UK formally handed over leadership of the global climate talks, a position it has held since the Cop26 summit in Glasgow last November, in Egypt. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, who will chair the Cop27 talks, said Egypt is determined to hold countries accountable for their pledges to address the climate crisis. He said: “We must not go beyond the point of no return [on the climate]. We must preserve our planet for future generations.” Security is tight in Sharm El Sheikh as world leaders began arriving on Sunday night and there are concerns among climate campaigners that their voices will not be heard at the talks.
