Johnson press conference summary
Here’s a quick summary of what Boris Johnson and Alok Sharma have just said at the press conference:
- Johnson said the conference marked the “death knell for coal” with a mandate to cut the use of coal power for the first time.
- On the late watering down of the language around ending the use of coal, Johnson said we cannot force sovereign nations to do what they do not wish to do.
- Johnson said the Cop26 talks in Glasgow had put the world on course for around 2C of warming and that 1.5C was still alive.
- On their personal efforts to reducing climate emissions, Sharma said he did not believe in restricting the use of air travel by politicians. Johnson said he used to travel everywhere by bike.
That’s it from me today. You can see all our Cop26 coverage here. Thank you for staying with us. Stay positive.
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Johnson is asked about sleaze and his own personal contribution to tackling climate change. Johnson says that of course he thinks things could certainly have been handled better by him (on the sleaze question). And says he used to travel everywhere by bike (on his personal contribution for reducing carbon emissions).
He then ends the press conference.
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Both Johnson and Sharma defend India over the watering down of the coal resolution. Sharma says India is pledging to get 50% of power from renewables by 2030.
Sharma says he travelled here today by train and electric car, at which point Johnson interrupts and tells him he is showing off.
Sharma says he doesn’t agree with restricting the use of flights by politicians and says it’s a personal choice and that he prefers the carrot rather than stick approach to encourage change.
Johnson is asked about how he rates the outcome of the Cop26 conference, he says it is “over 6/10”.
Another non-Cop26 question on MPs and second jobs. Johnson says: “It’s very important MPs work primarily for their constituents and anyone who lobbies on behalf of a commercial interest is clearly in breach of the rules.”
And back to the coal resolution issue, Johnson says whether it’s “phase out” or “phase down” it’s a downward gradient and that’s a first. He says Greenpeace has said as a result of Cop26 the era of coal is ending.
The Greenpeace statement Johnson was referring to was this one from Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace International, who said in reaction to the final agreement: “It’s meek, it’s weak and the 1.5C goal is only just alive, but a signal has been sent that the era of coal is ending. And that matters.”
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China and India will have to explain themselves to developing countries for watering down the coal resolution from ‘phasing out’ to ‘phasing down’ coal-fired power generation, says Sharma. Johnson doesn’t comment directly on China or India.
Alok Sharma is now talking. You will never get coal in the language, I was told he says, but we have done it. We’ve got every country to look at their 2030 targets next year. And every year ministers will look at this issue to see if we’re meeting these commitments. These are historic firsts, says Sharma.
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Johnson is now taking questions from the media. In a non-Cop26 question on the parliamentary commissioner for standards, Kathryn Stone, he says she needs to be allowed to get on with her “extremely difficult job”.
Back to Cop26, Johnson says countries must stick to their pledges now. But he says the social power of people demanding change is growing and that in a matter of a few years it will be unacceptable to start a new coal-fired power station around the world.
I accept this is not the solution, but we’ve delivered just about as much as we hoped including getting coal into the final text, which was a great achievement, adds Johnson.
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Johnson says the Cop26 talks in Glasgow have put the world on course for around 2C of warming. The world is undeniably heading in the right direction, he says, and 1.5C is still alive.
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In reference to the last-minute watering-down of the coal resolution, Johnson says: “We can lobby, we can cajole, we can encourage but we cannot force sovereign nations to do what they do not wish to do. It is ultimately their decision and they must stand by it.”
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90% of the world’s economy is committing to net zero ending their contribution to climate change altogether, he says. And 130 countries have signed up to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030 and those countries are home to 90% of the world’s forests, he adds.
Cop26 sounded the death knell for coal power, says Johnson
“The conference marked the beginning of the end for coal,” says Johnson. “For the first time ever the conference published a mandate to cut the use of coal power.” “The conference has sounded the death knell for coal power”, he adds.
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The press conference has just started. Boris Johnson is joined by the Cop26 chair Alok Sharma.
Boris Johnson press conference due at 5pm
The UK prime minister is due to hold a press conference on Cop26 from Downing Street, London, at 5pm today. We will post updates here.
Johnson has taken some flak for his contribution to the conference, particularly his decision to fly back on a private plane rather than take the four and a half hour train journey from Glasgow to London.
He was accused of “staggering hypocrisy” after it later emerged that he had flown back to attend a dinner at a men-only private members’ club.
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Eriel Deranger, the executive director of the Indigenous Climate Action group, said the final agreement left her “sad, angry, empowered and scared”:
This year global Indigenous People represented the second largest civil society delegation in attendance, second only to oil and gas lobbyists. Last night as the final language was adopted I couldn’t help but see both our presence and the presence of oil and gas in the outcomes. The final text left me sad, angry, empowered and scared. While we succeeded in getting references to human rights and rights of Indigenous peoples, it has fallen flat. These references mean little if they are also creating loopholes for dirty corporations and high polluting nations to “offset” their emissions by buying and trading the air and our lands and territories without our consent or participation.
It’s simply lip service in the name of business as usual if our people do not have power to make decisions for ourselves, participate in the processes or have mechanisms for grievances. It’s clear governments are unwilling to decouple themselves from corporate interests, that dominated negotiations this year, and that the rights of our communities are nothing more than bargaining chips. For our communities the real work begins when we get home and have to tell our people we didn’t succeed, and that the risks and threats to our people and land will continue, and increase, and that our fight for climate justice still wages on.
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Tim Crosland, director with environmental charity Plan B which took the government to court over its plans to build a new runway at Heathrow, is pretty scathing about the outcome of Cop26.
“Despite the determined efforts of many to present COP26 as “important progress”, such claims are no more than propaganda and greenwash. In objective terms, COP26 has ended in absolute failure,” he said.
Crosland added that it was important for the media to “call this out” so “public and political attention can be turned to a) the causes of failure and b) what can be done about them.”
It’s not that our politicians are evil. They don’t want us all to die. But they are blinded by ideology to the real cause of the crisis, which is an economic model which depends on short-term profits and compound economic growth, which can only be maintained through the concentrated power of fossil fuels.
António Guterres, the secretary general of the United Nations, says Glasgow laid the building blocks for progress but is very clear there is much more to do – starting with ending the massive taxpayer-funded handouts that governments give to fossil fuel companies every year.
We must end fossil fuel subsidies.
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) November 14, 2021
Phase out coal.
Put a price on carbon.
Protect vulnerable communities.
And make good on the $100 billion climate finance commitment to support developing countries.
We didn't achieve that at #COP26, but we have building blocks for progress.
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Tzeporah Berman, an academic and activist with the Stand Earth charity, says that what was achieved at Glasgow was “historic” – but only because the bar has been set so low by a compromised system:
Historic. And insufficient. That is the dilemma of climate era. We are so stuck in our current systems & so heavily influenced by incumbents who stand to benefit from status quo that even the qualified acknowledgement in text of #COP26 of one fossil fuel, coal feels historic. 🧵
— Tzeporah Berman (@Tzeporah) November 14, 2021
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This take from world renowned climate scientist and author Michael Mann warns of being overwhelmed with despondency about the outcome of Cop26, arguing that is what those opposed to real, urgent action want. His verdict: “Real progress WAS made, but much more work to be done.”
Doomer trolls/bots out in force right now. They want you to think that nothing was achieved at #COP26 & that nothing ever CAN be achieved on climate. They want you on the sidelines not the front lines.
— Prof Michael E. Mann (@MichaelEMann) November 14, 2021
Real progress WAS made, much more work to be done:
https://t.co/Nd0N9WAESH
This is a powerful and fascinating piece by my colleague George Monbiot who does not hold back in his verdict on what Cop26 achieved: “The Glasgow Climate Pact, for all its restrained and diplomatic language, looks like a suicide pact.”
But he says there is still hope, which, he argues, lies with so-called positive social and economic “tipping points”that can flip our complex system very quickly.
“Like natural systems, if they are driven past their tipping points, they can flip with astonishing speed. Our last, best hope is to use those dynamics to our advantage, triggering what scientists call “cascading regime shifts”.”
We’ve just posted video of the moment in the final plenary session when Cop president Alok Sharma fought back tears. It followed his apology for the change in language around fossil fuel - and brought a warm round of supportive applause from the delegates. It was a genuinely emotional moment which reflected how much everyone there has put into these negotiations. And also how tired everyone was!
And now I am going to hand over to my colleague Matthew Taylor, here to take you through the next few hours. Cop and out.
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So where does Cop26 stand in comparison to other Cops in terms of the now traditional overrun?
Officially the deadline for the negotiations is Friday. But almost every Cop has overrun - a few by days. In fact in recent years the increasing trend has been for a Sunday finish (a fact of which all of us camped there, waiting for the end, were grimly aware).
But Cop president Alok Sharma said firmly from the beginning that he did not want to overrun. When Friday evening came with no deal, the organisers announced that a new text would be published on Saturday morning and that that the final stage would take place on Saturday afternoon. And give or take a few hours for urgent huddling, he got the deal through by early Saturday evening.
So, according to the table posted by @carbonreporter earlier this week, this puts Cop26 somewhere between Bali and Warsaw: about 20th on the table.
So: if I apply the standard 2-week rule to COP3, then Kyoto ended on the Saturday at 1530, which puts it after COP10 and before COP6 in terms of over-running: pic.twitter.com/RYkvmTw6ot
— CarbonReporter (@CarbonReporter) November 11, 2021
My colleague Jessica Murray has spoken to locals about the impact of the conference on the city of Glasgow
“It’s been truly amazing. We’re just really grateful to have been at least slightly a part of it,” said local cafe owner Gillian McIntyre. “Where else do you get exposure to such a vast range of people from around the planet all in one place?”
Read her full piece here:
Real advances but not enough for this emergency, says science chief
Sir David King, a former chief scientific adviser to the UK government and current chair of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group, has responded to the final deal reached at the UN climate conference in Glasgow.
“There were real advances made in the agreement, following on from Cop21 in Paris 2015. Adaptation, mitigation and finance were all strengthened. Rules on carbon markets were approved. The importance of the protection, conservation and restoration of nature and ecosystems was recognised – although the phrase “critical importance” was removed. And the “phase down” – not “phase out” – of coal was approved, at the last minute.
“But there was no real understanding in the agreement of the extreme nature of the crisis. How do we, the current generation, ensure a manageable future for humanity? The threat to all of us from the loss of polar summer sea ice over the Arctic Ocean is a clear signal of the disaster from rising sea level, severe extreme weather events and high temperatures; but it was not addressed in any way. This was the meeting when the end of coal, oil and gas should have been set in place, in an orderly, efficient and fair way. The power of the USA oil and gas lobby meant that the USA was unable, once again, to show clear leadership on this critical issue.
“Countries and their leadership, fossil fuel industry lobbies, and private companies must all be held accountable for not only failing to follow up on promises made at the meeting but also for the loss of life and damage to our ecosystems that follow from their actions. National and international lawyers have a critically important role to play in managing this accountability.
“And we, the scientific community, have a critical role to play in analysing the actions year-by-year of each country to manage a safe future for humanity, to assist in the process of managing accountability. This role for the scientific community is effectively recognised in the first paragraph of the agreement.
“The follow-up meeting of the UNFCCC will be held this time next year in Egypt. We now have to look to that meeting to set in place not only the rapid phase out of fossil fuels and deforestation, but also for the developed economies to take on the responsibility to fund the removal of excess greenhouse gases at scale from the atmosphere, aimed at bringing the level down to 350 ppm CO2 equivalent. In order to buy time to achieve these objectives, they will also have to develop and roll out the repair of the Arctic Circle so that it is once again covered with ice in the polar summer.”
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US nonprofit news organisation Truthout is reporting that in a couple of days’ time the Biden administration is due to “auction off more than 80 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling companies less than a week after the United Nations COP26 climate conference”.
According to a Reuters report on this auction, back in September, this is an annual auction which also took place last November. The timing, however, is poor. Truthout reports: “More than 250 environmental, social justice and Indigenous groups sent a letter to President Joe Biden on Wednesday with an ‘urgent plea’ to cancel the lease sale.”
This is Bibi van der Zee, by the way, taking over from Alan Evans for the next few hours. Send any interesting Cop related thoughts to me via @bibivanderzee.
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Leo Hickman, the editor of the influential climate change website Carbon Brief, has posted this interesting breakdown of the controversial changes in language around coal.
You can trace the way in which the negotiators were forced over three days to insert more and more conditional words so that in the end they could make sure that the document did, in fact, mention coal and fossil fuels, for the very first time.
Here is how the wording of that key "phase down coal" paragraph changed over three days - and five fiercely negotiated iterations - at #COP26 pic.twitter.com/vDq2NHVYOv
— Leo Hickman (@LeoHickman) November 14, 2021
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Chis Stark, head of the UK government’s statutory advisers, the Committee on Climate Change, has told the Herald on Sunday that both the UK and Scottish governments need to set a timetable for ending oil and gas exploration.
Stark suggests it would be “useful and helpful” for the energy sector and could potentially reduce transition costs.
Both UK and Scottish governments have been accused of hypocrisy for not opposing Cambo, a proposed oil drilling project off Shetland, although Scottish ministers point out they do not have power over licensing.
Nicola Sturgeon gave her strongest indication last month of wanting to achieve “the fastest possible just transition” for the sector, but both governments were challenged at Cop26 for not yet signing up to the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance. Sturgeon has said her government is still “considering” joining the coalition of countries committing to phasing out those fossil fuels.
Stark told the Herald on Sunday: “The information we have worked hard at is on the demand side. On that front, it’s clearly useful and helpful to name a date and then build the public support for that date behind it and crucially get commercial response that’s behind it.
“You can see that in a lot of what the UK government has done in the last few weeks – which is to build that single idea that you phase out the sale of combustible engines by 2030 and then you have a mandate to increase it. You can do the same on gas boilers by 2033. The big one is the electricity supply by 2035 being fully decarbonised. Naming a date so that everyone is clear on what needs to happen, is a really useful way of clearing the path and bringing the costs down.”
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Richard Allan, professor of climate science at the university of Reading, has taken a relatively optimistic view of things and cites the remarkable progress made in recent years on some fronts:
“Less than 10 years ago the solid science of human-caused climate change was still disputed by agenda-driven individuals and organisations who should be made accountable for their damaging delaying tactics. Based on the clear scientific evidence, Cop26 has made progress towards a net zero CO2 emissions world but continued expansion of ambition is crucial in limiting the growing severity of climate extremes and to avoid rendering some regions uninhabitable for future generations.
“Given the glacial pace of progress on climate action, in part due to the blatant short term self-interest of powerful individuals and organisations, it’s almost tempting - like Gulliver at the end of his travels - to feel a sense of loathing for the human species. But there is also a sense of guarded optimism that a spark of the universe came alive, wondered at the beauty of our world, eventually noticed we were soiling it terribly before [we] imperfectly yet doggedly and collectively began digging ourselves out of our mess.”
John Kerry calls the Glasgow climate pact a success
US climate envoy John Kerry has hailed the Glasgow climate pact as a success, saying that although it was imperfect, “we are in fact closer than we have ever been before to avoiding climate chaos and securing cleaner air, safer water and a healthier planet.”
He warned that Cop26 was “not the finish line”, but said: “Thanks to the work here in Glasgow, the goals we are setting ourselves are much, much closer. And we will come even closer if we implement and follow through [on the deal agreed] … As we leave Glasgow, our code word is going to be implementation, followup and follow-through.”
My colleague Fiona Harvey has more here:
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Our economics editor, Larry Elliott, says the Cop26 outcome was foreseeable for those who have been following international struggles over trade talks.
There was a time when developing countries were expected to approve trade deals that had been cooked up by the Americans and the Europeans, but those days are over. China, India and Brazil are now big players in trade talks and are quite prepared to say no to proposals seen as biased towards the interests of developed nations. The last-minute watering down of the text on fossil fuels in Glasgow is a reminder of that. The anger amongst least developed countries over the failure of richer nations to meet their promises of $100bn (£75bn) a year to help them cope with climate change is another.
Read the full piece here:
'Utter betrayal': civil society groups furious at Cop26 outcome
The Cop26 Coalition, a group of some of the world’s biggest environmental organisations and civil society groups, has issued a damning statement on the outcome of the summit.
Spokesman Asad Rehman, who gave a blistering speech in the conference centre as part of the closing plenary, said:
“This agreement is an utter betrayal of the people. It is hollow words on the climate emergency from the richest countries, with an utter disregard of science and justice. The UK government greenwash and PR have spun us off course.
“The rich refused to do their fair share, with more empty words on climate finance and turning their back on the poorest who are facing a crisis of Covid coupled with economic and climate apartheid - all caused by the actions of the richest.
“It’s immoral for the rich to sit there talking about their future children and grandchildren, when the children of the south are suffering now. This Cop has failed to keep 1.5C alive, and set us on a pathway to 2.5C. All while claiming to act as they set the planet on fire.
“At Cop26, the richest got what they came here for, and the poorest leave with nothing. The people are rising up across the globe to hold our governments and corporations to account - and make them act.”
On BBC Scotland’s The Sunday Show, Baroness Parminter, chair of the Lords environment and climate change committee, said that the Glasgow pact did not put the world on the path to 1.5C.
“Our view is that incremental progress has been achieved but not in line with the urgency we require. We’ve heard from countries across the Pacific, from Tuvalu and Marshall Islands, people’s homes are being flooded now. We’ve had reports from IPCC earlier in the year that really need to address these issues now. If we don’t reach 1.5C then some of these effects are going to be irreversible. The pledges and the pact that came out yesterday don’t put us on the path to 1.5C.”
She added that her committee had significant concerns that government departments “don’t seem to be embedding the need for climate change considerations into their policy decision making. We see perverse decisions, like the change to the domestic fuel tax levy on aviation”.
“Although the government has some really good targets … some of the delivery we’re seeing is actually running counter to what those targets require.”
She said the UK government needed to provide “better and clearer leadership” in the next year of its presidency to meet the pledges that had been established.
My colleague Will Hutton at the Observer has written on the complex dance between capitalism and the climate crisis that unfolded at Cop26.
The environmental genie is out of the bottle. In Europe, greens are in government or coalition government in Austria, Belgium, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and Scotland – and about to be in Germany. Politicians are in the market for votes; Boris Johnson, who is closely tuned to voters’ preferences even if many in his party are not, has been quick to mount a volte face over the climate crisis.
The consequences of the final Cop26 outcome are not clear, but more important is that it has happened at all. The momentum to “keep 1.5 alive” is obvious and that is as vital as the detail. What matters is how national governments and international agencies find ways of directing a capitalism that knows, given what its markets want, that it has to move in this direction.
Read the full piece here:
Evelyne Huytebroeck, co-chair of the European Green party, has said:
“Climate justice remains vastly forgotten. The high expectations from developing countries for loss and damages to be fully recognised were not matched in the final agreement. But the fight is not over. As Greens, we will herald this fight for climate justice at the European level but also through our Greens in government across Europe.”
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has commented on the outcome of the talks:
IUCN welcomes the progress made in Glasgow, including with respect to nature. However, it stresses that this headway will not be sufficient to “keep 1.5C alive”, and calls for significant and meaningful step change at Cop27. We are running out of time and options.
For the first time, world leaders have clearly recognised the interlinked relationship between the global biodiversity and climate crises and the critical role that nature plays in both adaption and mitigation simultaneously. This is an important and welcome move forward.
However, to keep global temperature rise within 1.5C, we need to move from recognition to establishing concrete pathways for delivery. In this respect, while the Cop decisions are an important step forward, the absence of a clear reference to nature-based solutions is a missed opportunity that will need to be revisited as soon as possible.
Chris Stark, head of the the government’s statutory climate advisers, the Committee on Climate Change, says the body will publish a stocktake after the Cop26 summit.
The Glasgow Climate Pact is agreed.@theCCCuk will shortly publish a stocktake of where we stand after #COP26, including advice on the UK Presidency’s role for the next year.
— Chris Stark (@ChiefExecCCC) November 13, 2021
Tonight I’ll just reflect that we have a new platform for even greater global ambition. Hope we use it. pic.twitter.com/NBcaMKIN3T
Ugandan youth climate activist Vanessa Nakate has tweeted about her disappointment about the lack of a “loss and damage facility” - essentially, compensation for climate damage - in the Glasgow pact.
She also praises Nicola Sturgeon of Scotland, who became the first country to pledge to a loss and damage fund with a $2m pledge.
#COP26 was nearly a breakthrough moment for #LossAndDamage — it seemed for a brief hopeful moment, that in Glasgow, leaders might finally commit to establishing an international #LossAndDamage fund to help vulnerable countries already losing so much to the climate crisis
— Vanessa Nakate (@vanessa_vash) November 13, 2021
Thread
But in the final hours, the US, EU and UK stripped the concept of a “fund” out of the COP decision text - watering it down to instead to holding a “workshop”. Rich countries clearly do not want to pay for the costs they are inflicting on poorer nations.
— Vanessa Nakate (@vanessa_vash) November 13, 2021
As FM @NicolaSturgeon — who just made Scotland the first country in the world to pledge funding to Loss and Damage — said, “Finance is key to this, not as an act of charity but as an act of reparation.”
— Vanessa Nakate (@vanessa_vash) November 13, 2021
“Rich, developed nations like [Scotland] owe an obligation — a debt … because we’ve created climate change. We’ve benefited through generations from the emissions that have been pumped into the atmosphere. And countries like Vanessa’s are right now paying the price.”
— Vanessa Nakate (@vanessa_vash) November 13, 2021
#COP27 moves to Egypt — and the Global South. We cannot adapt to starvation. We cannot adapt to extinction. We cannot eat coal. We cannot drink oil. We will not give up.
— Vanessa Nakate (@vanessa_vash) November 13, 2021
Asked about the $100bn climate finance promise that has been broken by rich countries, Sharma says he understands vulnerable countries’ sense of frustration.
“We know with confidence that that $100bn will come in 2023,” he says. He adds that adaptation finance will be doubled by 2025 as well (though does not mention that it is pledged to be doubled from 2019 levels, not current levels).
Sharma says nations like China and India will have to justify themselves to developing nations.
“This deal does keep 1.5C in reach,” insists Sharma, who says he has received many messages of thanks from around the world for the deal.
But he says the commitments that have been made must be followed through on, he says.
Alok Sharma, the Cop26 president, is now on Trevor Phillips. Phillips asks him about the Queen not attending a memorial service at the Cenotaph in London due to ill health and Sharma says he wishes the Queen the best.
Asked about his emotional reaction at the end of the Cop26 summit, Sharma says
“What we wanted to achieve at Glasgow was to keep within reach the goal of … 1.5C, and we delivered on that. We also closed off all the outstanding elements of the Paris rulebook.”
“On the issue of coal, I should point out that for the very first time in any of these conferences the word coal is in the text.
“Of course I would have preferred the words ‘phase out’ rather than ‘phase down’,” he says. “You heard that disappointment on the floor.”
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My colleague Fiona Harvey has looked at the UK’s hosting of the Cop26 conference and the behind-the-scenes choreography that led to the deal we ended up with.
The choreography was a key part of the UK’s plan: the Cop talks are dominated by backroom technical discussions over the fine details of the Paris agreement. Slow-moving and impenetrable to outsiders, these can give the (correct) impression of stalling and delay in the face of a global crisis.
So to gain a sense of momentum, the UK plan was to launch the summit with world leaders, then keep up a steady stream of “wins” that would cover aspects of the climate crisis that lie outside the scope of the annual UN talks but are no less vital to its resolution.
Read the full piece here:
Helm says a 2.4C hotter world is going to be bad for most countries, and worse for some than others. But he says it’s not clear exactly how the world will respond to that level of warming.
“We don’t no precisely, but there are no suggestions that it’s going to be a good thing.”
Helm points out that even if the costs of acting now are cheaper than acting later, they are still a significant cost.
“29 years away is not really long enough for much technical change,” he says. “We’ve got to do it with what we’ve got.”
Next up is the economist Dieter Helm, who is very pessimistic about the chances of keeping within 1.5C of global heating.
“It’s dead,” he says.
Helm says the future of climate will be determined in China, India and sub-Saharan Africa, and laments that “the key players are not at the table”.
Helm says summits like Cop26 are not going to fix things. Helm says solving trade and carbon border pricing are the way to make a difference.
Phillips asks Helm to estimate what temperature we are heading for if the Cop26 pledges are fulfilled. Helm refers to studies published during the conference which forecast between 1.8C in a most optimistic scenario and 2.4C of heating in a realistic scenario. Helm says these outcomes would be “really, really bad”.
Phillips has been laying various traps for Miliband, but Miliband declines to walk into them. Phillips suggests climate action is not popular with poorer voters, although recent polling has found that is not the case, and Miliband repeats that climate action now is cheaper than not taking action in the long run.
Asked about the upcoming Cumbria coal mine and Cambo oil field going ahead, Miliband says they should be cancelled.
“It looks like total hypocrisy,” says Miliband. “We need to show we’re not looking both ways as a country.””
Miliband says that Labour have pledged to spend £28bn a year in tackling the climate crisis if they come to power. He says the government should be helping subsidise green boilers and electric vehicles.
Miliband says borrowing now to spend on climate policies is the right thing to do, and cites a study that found not spending on climate would end up costing twice a much in the long run.
“The biggest debt we can store up for future generations is not tackling this crisis,” says Miliband.
Miliband says more needs to be done to put pressure on big emitters like China, India and Australia. He criticises the government for dropping climate commitments from a trade deal they are striking with Australia.
“Climate policy cant sit on the side of other policies … we should be rewriting that trade deal,” he says, adding that if every country’s policies were in line with Australia’s, the world would be heading for 4C of warming
The shadow business secretary, Ed Miliband, is speaking on the Trevor Phillips show on Sky.
Miliband says the aim of keeping a heating target of 1.5C alive is “frankly, in intensive care.”
He says the world is only 25% of the way to its goal of halving global emissions, and that all countries need to step up and deliver on the deal.
Asked about the additional responsibility of developed countries, Miliband brings up the pledge of $100bn a year of climate finance that was promised to poor countries at Copenhagen in 2009 and formally pledged in Paris in 2015.
“More than 10 years on, this has still not been delivered,” Miliband points out.
He says the UK government’s cuts to overseas aid undermined its negotiating position during the talks.
Welcome to the Guardian’s coverage of reaction to the “Glasgow climate pact” that was struck on Saturday night at the Cop26 climate summit.
The deal was welcomed by many world leaders despite a last-minute intervention by India that saw the wording on “phasing out” coal weakened to “phasing down”. US climate envoy John Kerry said the change was regrettable but that “if we hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t have had an agreement.”
Environmental groups have been less kind - Amanda Mukwashi at Christian Aid accused rich countries of “kicking the can down the road”, while Rachel Kennerley at Friends of the Earth dubbed the pact the “Glasgow get-out clause”.
We’ll bring you all the latest reactions and fallout to the deal here. You can email me at alan.evans@theguardian.com or find me on Twitter at @itsalanevans.
