A melting block of ice stood in for the Prime Minister after he ducked a debate on the most important issue facing humanity.
Boris Johnson and fellow no-show Nigel Farage’s decision not to take part in Channel 4’s climate debate came just hours after the European Parliament declared a climate emergency.
Today also marks the start of a UN summit, perhaps the most important of its kind since the introduction of the Paris Agreement in 2015 – a landmark in combating climate change.
Worryingly, Johnson’s refusal also followed a stark warning from scientists who have called on urgent international action as “we are in a state of planetary emergency”.
They say the world may have already crossed half of the climate tipping points identified a decade ago, meaning we have already lost control.
Tipping points are reached when particular impacts of global warming become unstoppable.
This threatens the loss of the Amazon rainforest and the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland, currently undergoing unprecedented changes.
And they warn one tipping point, such as the release of methane from melting permafrost, will fuel others, leading to dramatic cascading effects.
In the past, extreme heating of 5C was thought to be necessary to pass a tipping point but new evidence says it could be between 1C and 2C.
While researchers acknowledge the complex science of tipping points means uncertainty remains, the potential damage is so big and the time to act is so short, that to “err on the side of danger is not a responsible option”.
Prof Tim Lenton, at the University of Exeter and lead author of the report, said: “The simple version is the school kids [striking for climate action] are right – we are seeing potentially irreversible changes in the climate system under way, or very close.”
Johnson’s boycott not only shows the Tories are not interested in voters concerned about the environment – but how his lack of knowledge would not stand up to scrutiny.
