British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced on Wednesday that he will attend the COP27 summit in Egypt the following week, reversing an earlier, sharply criticised decision to forego the annual climate conference in favour of focusing on urgent domestic economic challenges.
Prior until this, the Prime Minister’s spokesman stated that progress on a domestic budget statement that is expected on November 17 will determine the country’s participation in the climate negotiations.
“There is no long-term prosperity without action on climate change. There is no energy security without investing in renewables,” Sunak wrote on Twitter.
referred to an agreement made at the summit last year that Britain hosted by saying he was going to “deliver on Glasgow’s legacy of building a secure and sustainable future” by being there. The agreement was made in an effort to preserve the potential for the world to prevent the worst effects of global warming.
Sunak came under fire from environmentalists, opposition politicians, and even some members of his own party after his office announced last week that he would not be attending the 27th session of the United Nations Climate Change Conference.
“The prime minister has been shamed into going to COP27 by the torrent of disbelief that he would fail to turn up,” the opposition Labour Party’s climate policy spokesperson Ed Miliband said. “He is going to avoid embarrassment not to provide leadership.”
Alok Sharma, the president of Britain’s COP26, expressed his happiness that the prime minister will attend the conference after first criticising Sunak’s choice.
Meanwhile, former British prime minister Boris Johnson, who hosted world leaders at last year’s COP26 in Glasgow, said he would attend COP27. “I was invited by the Egyptians,” he told Sky News in an interview on Tuesday. “I want to talk a little bit about how I see things and how we see things in the UK.”
Separately, Britain announced late on Tuesday that it will postpone making a decision on a new coal mine in Cumbria, northern England, until Dec. 8. This means that information on whether the project would move forward won’t be released until the conclusion of the climate talks.
The Climate Change Committee (CCC), the government’s independent climate experts, has stated that the mine’s construction will make it harder for Britain to meet its 2050 climate goal of having net zero emissions.
“The run up to next week’s climate summit was an ideal opportunity for the government to rebuild its battered green credentials by rejecting this damaging and unnecessary coal mine. It’s a shame they didn’t seize it,” Friends of the Earth (FoE) energy campaigner Tony Bosworth said.
