Boris Johnson is to make a fresh plea for the world to take action on climate change before he flies out of Glasgow.
The Prime Minister is to hold a press conference at the COP26 conference in a last-minute call to delegates to produce a planet-saving result over the next fortnight.
As the Prime Minister, US President Joe Biden and other world leaders prepared to fly out of Glasgow the Prime Minister was expected to hail the “momentum” of the first two days of the conference despite Russia, China and India flouting the plans to achieve the net zero targets to limit temperature rises by 1.5C.
With a series of what Downing Street labelled “Glasgow breakthroughs” under his belt, ranging from a £14 billion deal on tackling deforestation to delivering clean, affordable technology around the world, left Johnson feeling buoyant.
But it appeared that Vladimir Putin was attempting to hold the climate change conference to ransom when it was reported the Russian Special envoy to the COP26 suggested that lifting Western sanctions could help Russia speed up its race toward carbon neutrality.
The Prime Minister’s spokesman said: “I don’t think we see a link between those two issues. Every country has the responsibility to tackle climate change. This is a global problem that needs solutions from every country, particularly those that are the biggest emitters. You’ve seen Russia make some steps towards that and continue to have discussions with them about doing more.”
The Downing Street official said the conference had seen “significant momentum in the last day and a half” with agreements on saving rainforests and an expected announcement on cleaning up the carbon investments in the City of London financial centre.
But India’s President Modi dealt the plans for climate change a blow on Monday by pledging to go to go Net Zero in 2070 - two decades after the UK’s 2050 target.
China’s President Xi Jinping is not attending the Glasgow conference leaving conference officials worried that the world’s biggest polluter is not showing leadership on the climate change issue.
As world leaders prepare to jet out of Glasgow and leave the backroom haggling to their officials for the next two weeks with Johnson prepared to swoop back into Glasgow at the end of the talks to claim the credit or to pull a deal out of the fire.
Downing Street deliberately tried to strike a more positive tone on Monday, sparking a debate about whether progress has been genuine or whether the PM was simply using expectation management.
The PM’s spokesman said: “While there’s a long two weeks ahead of us and a good deal to nail down, some of the commitments we’ve seen over the last day and a half are very encouraging and building that momentum.”
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