At the end of 2020, Prime minister Boris Johnson declared the UK would recover green from the coronavirus pandemic, laying out a 10-point plan to reboot the economy and create green jobs. In December, he announced plans to cut emissions by 68% by 2030, compared to 1990 levels, in a bid to set the UK on course to achieving its 2050 net zero goal.

But climate campaigners say recent policy announcements are at odds with Johnson’s proclaimed green vision.

“We have strong ambition and good rhetoric on building back better. But there is still a gap in funding and policy in order to get us on track for the [climate] targets and give investors a really clear signal as to which way the government is moving,” Roz Bulleid, deputy policy director at the Green Alliance, told Climate Home News. 

From slashing foreign aid to greenlighting a new coal mine, here are five policies that undermine the UK’s leadership credentials.

1. Airline support 

Johnson plans to cut air passenger duty on domestic flights to revive the airline industry after air travel collapse in 2020. Proposals, set out in a UK transport review on Wednesday, include halving the current levy of £13 per domestic flight. The announcement comes a week after rail fares increased by 2.6%. 

The decision has been widely criticised by environmental groups who say it undermines the government’s 2050 zero target.

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) advised in December that if the UK is to meet its 2050 net zero goal, it will have to reduce its overall aviation emissions. Aviation is likely to be the UK’s highest emitting sector by 2050, according to the CCC.

Hall of shame: 9 countries missing the chance of a green recovery

“There is no way to bring emissions within safe limits without constraining flights. The easiest place to start is with domestic flights that have transport alternatives,” Leo Murray, director of innovation at environmental group Possible, told Climate Home News. 

Murray described the government’s decision as “embarrassing”, given the UK’s role as president of the Cop26 climate summit this year. 

“It makes us look like we don’t know what we’re doing. The government is very committed to announcing ambitious targets but there is no evidence that it is prepared to implement any policy to follow through on those targets,” he said. 

2. New coal mine

In January, the UK government was accused of “rank hypocrisy” for greenlighting a project to build the country’s first deep coal mine in 30 years while seeking to lead on climate action. 

Cumbria county council suspended the project last month following mounting criticism. The mining company said it plans to seek legal action over the suspension.

Lord Deben, head of the CCC, wrote a letter to minister of housing and communities Robert Jenrick in which he warned the project “gives a negative impression of the UK’s climate priorities in the year of Cop26”.

Amid the rising controversy, Jenrick “called in” the decision on 11 March, meaning central government will consider overruling the council decision.

“It’s a really bad look for a government who claims to be a climate leader and who is hosting the most important climate summit ever to be telling other governments what to do and then supporting a coal mine in its own backyard,” Rebecca Willis, professor in practice at Lancaster University, previously told Climate Home News. 

“At best that’s confusing and at worst it’s hypocritical,” she said. 

3. Foreign aid cuts

Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced in November that the government planned to slash its overseas development assistance from 0.7% to 0.5% of its national income.

Leaked documents from the UK’s foreign and development office obtained by openDemocracy show cuts are planned across some of the world’s most climate vulnerable nations this year. Cuts of around 60% are planned in South Sudan and Somalia. Aid programmes in Syria will be cut by 67% and Nigeria by 58%. 

The lack of UK finance threatens climate progress in countries such as South Sudan which is in the grips of a humanitarian crisis. The world’s newest country is drafting plans to raise its climate ambition by rolling out renewable energy and mass tree planting, but relies heavily on international support to deliver.

South Sudan plans to raise climate ambition amid ‘dire’ humanitarian crisis

In an open letter in November, environmental groups warned the cuts would worsen the climate crisis and undermine a core aim of Cop26: increasing support to vulnerable countries. 

Tom Evans, from the think tank E3G, described the UK aid cuts as “a major strategic mistake” and warned it would erode the trust between the Cop26 host and developing countries.

4. Green homes U-turn

One of the government’s flagship schemes to decarbonise heating for 600,000 households and support 100,000 jobs was axed for falling short of its target by the end of March. 

The £2bn green homes grant, which allow people to apply for vouchers to cover the cost of installing energy efficient improvements to their homes, was promoted as a key pillar of Johnson’s plan to align the UK’s short-term actions with its carbon neutrality goal. 

Analysis by the London-based Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit think tank shows the government issued vouchers to just 49,000 households, 8% of its target, despite more than 69,000 applying to the scheme.

In a written answer to British lawmakers, business minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan said the unspent £2bn would not be rolled over to the next financial year and would instead be replaced by a £320 million funding pot. 

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“This colossal failure to deliver the tens of thousands of jobs promised really demonstrates how, by scrapping the green homes grant funding, the government has got it wrong on so many levels,” said Kate Blagojevic, head of climate at Greenpeace UK. 

“It’s imperative for jobs, rebalancing the economy, creating warm homes and tackling the climate crisis that this scheme is rebooted and properly funded,” she said.

5. Fuel duty freeze

In the latest UK budget unveiled last week, a fuel duty on petrol and diesel was frozen for the 11th year in a row.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak was expected to increase the fuel tax in a signal of the government’ seriousness to lowering emissions. But at the last moment, Sunak changed his mind. 

“To keep the cost of living low, I’m not prepared to increase the cost of a tank of fuel, so the scheduled rise in fuel duty is cancelled,” Sunak said at the budget presentation. 

“Future fuel duty rates will be considered in the context of the UK’s commitment to reach net-zero emissions by 2050,” the budget said. 

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Campaigners argue the freeze further weakens the government’s green recovery plans.  “Fuel duty rise is disastrous. We aren’t doing the things we need to be doing to erode car dependency,” said Murray.

According to analysis by Carbon Brief, the freeze in fuel duty since 2010 has increased UK carbon emissions by as much as 5% over the past decade.  

“Fuel duty could be a fantastic way to pay for transport alternatives,” Murray said, adding that for many people driving is the only option due to a lack of affordable and accessible public transport.

This article was updated after publication with the information that the planning minister had called in the Cumbria coal mine decision.

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Speaking at the One Planet Summit for biodiversity held in Paris on Monday, French president Emmanuel Macron, UK prime minister Boris Johnson promised to set aside a significant portion of climate finance for projects that help soils and plants soak up carbon, while creating habitats for wildlife.

The one-day biodiversity summit co-hosted by France, the UN and the World Bank and attended by heads of state, UN chief António Guterres and leaders of international and financial institutions, aimed to converge efforts to reverse biodiversity loss with addressing the climate crisis.

Macron committed to earmark 30% of France’s climate funding by 2030 for “nature-based solutions”. “We need to take actions now that will help us change the world and make it a better place by 2030,” he said.

As an example that links the climate and biodiversity agendas, Macron led a pledging conference for the Great Green Wall. An ambitious vision to create a 15 kilometre wide and 8,000 kilometre long strip of vegetation across 11 countries in the Sahel, the initiative will halt desertification, bolster food security and create millions of jobs, Macron said.

Mobilising new funding to protect nature was one of the summit’s four major themes. UN-endorsed research found an additional $700 billion per year is needed to reverse human destruction of the natural world.

Research by The Nature Conservancy and 15 other institutions claims nature-based solutions can provide up to 37% of the emission reductions needed by 2030 to keep global temperature rise below 2C. However, only 3% of international climate finance fits that category, with the bulk going to cut emissions from energy use.

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Joining by video link, prime minister Boris Johnson said £3bn of the UK’s £11.6bn international climate finance commitment to 2025 will be spent on supporting nature and biodiversity.

This will include marine conservation, tackling the illegal timber trade and deforestation and conserving habitats such as mangroves that protect communities from climate impacts.

“Obviously it’s right to focus on climate change and cut CO2 emissions but we won’t achieve balance with our planet unless we protect nature as well. Climate change must now be seen as part of an overall agenda to protect the natural world,” he said.

NGO Oxfam noted the funds came out of an aid budget the UK government had recently cut. “As important as [nature and biodiversity] are, the first priority of overseas aid should be the alleviation of poverty,” said campaigner Tracy Carty.

Prime minister Justin Trudeau said Canada’s future climate contributions will also include funds for biodiversity and committed up to $44m (C$55m) to the UN’s land degradation neutrality fund.

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Vanessa Pérez-Cirera, deputy lead climate and energy practice at WWF, told Climate Home News that while connecting the climate and nature agendas was welcome, governments should “not play musical chairs” with climate finance by pitting different needs against each other.

Instead, funding for nature should be new and additional with donor countries demonstrating coherent policies at home to address the drivers of biodiversity loss and end harmful subsidies for fossil fuels and unstainable agriculture practices, she said.

Kelsey Perlman, forest and climate campaigner at NGO Fern, told Climate Home News that while many will want to “jump for joy at an attempt to address this financing gap for nature,” how the money is disbursed will be key.

“Everybody wants to bridge climate and biodiversity but that means that the way things have been done in the past probably need to be done significantly differently,” she said.

Perlman called for “transformative projects that put biodiversity at the forefront” and focus on the rights of communities living in protected and restored areas. Bilateral agreements between donor countries and vulnerable nations could offer an opportunity to do this while fulfilling climate goals.

“Resilience in any ecosystem is based on its biodiversity and not on the carbon that it stores,” she added.

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The UN biodiversity body has yet to reschedule a critical summit in Kunming, China that was postponed from 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Nations are expected to agree on a framework to protect the world’s biodiversity for the next decade.

An alliance of more than 50 countries committed to protect at least 30% of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030, known as the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, was formally launched at the summit, co-chaired by the Costa Rica, France and the UK.

More than 20 countries including Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mexico and Angola joined the alliance, which hopes to form the basis for an ambitious global agreement at Kunming.

Governments are also due to raise climate ambition and put the world on track to limiting global heating “well below 2C” when they meet in Glasgow, UK, for the Cop26 summit in November.

“2021 must be the year we reconcile humanity and nature,” Guterres told the summit. “The pandemic recovery is an opportunity to change course… and revive economies, build resilience and rescue biodiversity.”

“Nature-based solutions such as Africa’s Great Green Wall are especially promising,” Guterres said, adding preserving the world’s biodiversity could create 191 million jobs by 2030, citing analysis from the World Economic Forum.

Green growth champion: Focus on jobs helps poorer nations raise climate ambition

Abdoulaye Dia, executive secretary of Pan African Agency for the Great Green Wall, said additional financing for the initiative needed to consider the debt sustainability of Sahel countries, calling for 60% of new finances to come from donors and 40% from concessional finance.

An estimated $4.3 billion annually is needed to restore 8.2 million hectares of land every year in the Sahel region to 2030 to achieve the Great Green Wall’s goals.

More than $14bn of new funding was promised at the summit for Great Green Wall for 2021-2025, including new commitments from the African Development Bank, the World Bank, the European Investment Bank and the French development agency.

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) announced projects worth $925m were being elaborated under a new investment programme to boost climate finance for rural populations in the Sahel, focusing on sustainable agriculture.

The GCF hopes to leverage $1 billion in resources for the Great Green Wall in 2021 and 2022.

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The prime minister accepted the Climate Change Committee’s recommendation on Thursday to set the target as its “nationally determined contribution” (NDC) to the Paris Agreement. It sets the UK on course to achieve its 2050 net zero goal and is significantly higher than its previous commitments.

“Today, we are taking the lead with an ambitious new target to reduce our emissions by 2030, faster than any major economy, with our Ten Point Plan helping us on our path to reach it,” Boris Johnson said in a statement. 

Last month the government set out its long-awaited 10-point plan for a “green industrial revolution” and pledged to invest £12 billion to help the UK achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Critics noted this was dwarfed by spending plans for road building and defence, and further policies would be needed to deliver the emissions cuts.

On Thursday, Lord Deben, chair of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), wrote in a letter to the UK’s business and energy minister Alok Sharma that a target of 68% or higher “would constitute a decisive commitment to a net zero emissions trajectory, consistent with the Paris Agreement.”

“It would place the UK among the leading countries in climate ambition,” Lord Deben said. 

“The NDC is more than just a number,” he added, noting that the target should be accompanied by “clear commitments to reduce international aviation and shipping emissions, and greater support for climate finance, particularly for developing countries.” Aviation and shipping emissions are excluded from the 2030 target.

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To achieve the goal, the CCC projects 43% of cars on UK roads should be electric and 87% of electricity come from nuclear or renewable energy by 2030. Next-generation technologies including carbon capture and storage, hydrogen fuel and carbon removal from the air are expected to contribute emissions reductions.

“The UK’s new emissions target is among the highest in the world and reflects the urgency and scale of the challenge our planet faces,” said Sharma, who is president-designate of next year’s Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, UK.

“As a country, we have demonstrated we can both rapidly cut carbon emissions, while creating new jobs, new technologies and future-proof industries that will generate economic growth for decades to come.”

As host of Cop26, the UK set the ball rolling ahead of a virtual ambition summit it is co-hosting with the UN and France on 12 December to mark the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement. The UK has asked governments to present tougher commitments on reducing emissions, adapting to climate impacts and boosting climate finance at the summit. 

“This is a global effort, which is why the UK is urging world leaders as part of next week’s Climate Ambition Summit to bring forward their own ambitious plans to cut emissions and set net zero targets,” Johnson said.

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China, South Korea and Japan have all announced long-term net zero pledges in the past three months, but have yet to come forward with strengthened 2030 goals. 

“International attention now turns to the United States, China and other major economies to take similar steps by Cop26,” said Laurence Tubiana, one of the architects of the Paris Agreement and CEO of the European Climate Foundation.

Incoming US president Joe Biden has made climate action a priority for his administration, mentioning it in every call he has had with world leaders since his election victory. However he faces a challenge to deliver credible climate commitments after his Democratic party failed to win a Senate majority.

“This marker from the UK sets a high bar for the White House,” Nick Mabey, chief executive of think tank E3G, told Climate Home News. 

The UK announcement comes ahead of the European Council meeting next week when EU leaders are under pressure to agree on a goal of cutting emissions by at least 55% by 2030, compared to 1990 levels, up from 40% currently. 

“Failing where the UK has succeeded would be hugely embarrassing internationally, and a significant setback to the EU’s aspirations for its Green Deal. As a neighbouring country facing similar challenges with the net zero transition, the UK’s commitment should give EU leaders a boost of confidence to adopt the 55% target without hesitation,” said Mabey.

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Climate campaigners welcomed the news, urging the UK government to put the ambition into action as quickly as possible.

“Given the urgency of the climate crisis and the rapid advances in zero carbon solutions, ambition can be pushed even higher over the next decade,” said John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK. “The government must now increase the action needed to cut emissions from our homes, roads, farms and power sources in the UK.”

Mohamed Adow, director of Nairobi-based climate and energy think tank Power Shift Africa, said the UK needed to do more to support developing nations.

“For people living in the vulnerable places of the world who are dealing with the impacts of climate change, we want to see not just emissions cuts but also support for those already suffering. The Paris Agreement stipulates that these national pledges should cover both areas and so for the UK to be a credible host of next year’s meeting they need to announce how they plan to support the vulnerable. Until then this is only half a plan,” he said.

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Host to the Cop26 climate talks in Glasgow in November 2021, the UK is expected to announce a 2030 climate target ahead of a virtual event it is co-hosting with the UN and France to mark the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement.

The UK has asked world leaders to present tougher commitments on cutting emissions, adapting to climate impacts and providing climate finance at the summit. Only countries that have announced new and ambitious action in 2020 will be given a platform.

“And yes, the UK will be setting out its own nationally determined contribution metric ahead of 12 December,” Cop26 president designate and the UK’s business minister Alok Sharma, told an event held by London-based think-tank Green Alliance on Friday.

Having previously submitted a joint “nationally determined contribution” (NDC) to Paris as part of the EU, Brexit Britain is now going alone.

The timing has given the government a headache. Official advice from the Climate Change Committee was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic and is due to land on 9 December – just three days before the summit.

The Committee is expected to recommend an emissions reduction target in the high sixties, with sources close to the process discussing cuts of at least 68% from 1990 to 2030. The government is not obliged to adopt the Committee’s number but would have a lot of explaining to do if it went against the independent advice.

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Progressive EU member states are urging the UK to announce its new climate plan ahead of a meeting of the European Council 10-11 December, to put pressure on the bloc’s laggards to agree a new goal of cutting emissions to at least 55% from 1990 levels by 2030, up from 40% currently.

If the UK is to use its leverage as Cop26 host to raise ambition, it will need to demonstrate its 2030 target represents a real progression of its carbon-cutting efforts.

While a rapid phaseout of coal power has allowed the UK to stay within its carbon budgets to 2022, a policy gap opens up later this decade. The Committee has previously warned the UK is off pace for its old target of 80% emissions cuts by 2050, let alone the recently adopted net zero goal. Action is needed across sectors including transport, buildings and heavy industry to get back on track.

London-based think tank Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit found that if the UK simply translated its existing carbon budgets into an emissions target, it would be a 64% cut from 1990 levels by 2030.

A headline target in the high sixties would represent a strengthening of that trajectory, but by some analysis stop short of compatibility with a 1.5C global warming limit – the Paris accord’s most ambitious goal.

Ryan Wilson, a climate and energy policy analyst at Climate Analytics, a Climate Action Tracker partner organisation, told Climate Home that to align with 1.5C, the UK should cut domestic emissions around 70% by 2030.

Taking into account the UK’s historic responsibility in causing climate change and its capability to act, Wilson said the UK’s contribution needed to be equivalent to achieving net zero emissions by around 2030. Some of that could be delivered through finance or “other means of support to achieve emission reductions abroad beyond those required at the domestic level”.

Boris Johnson has further to go on climate to show true leadership

Earlier this month, the Labour opposition’s shadow climate minister Matthew Pennycook told Climate Home the UK Treasury was considering a range of 61-68% for a 2030 target. He added that anything below the high 60s would be insufficient.

Campaigners have demanded more. WWF has called for the UK to reduce its emissions “at least in the region of 70%” by 2030 and Greenpeace for 75% cuts.

Business groups, young people, faith leaders, academics and health professionals wrote to Prime Minister Boris Johnson last month to demand he set a 2030 goal that is line with global efforts to limit global heating by 1.5C.

On Saturday, Scotland pledged to publish an indicative climate plan to reduce emissions 75% by 2030. Scotland, where nationalists have revived a debate about independence, will be covered by a UK-wide NDC but has set its own goal to cut emissions to net zero by 2045.

For the whole of the UK, the government has yet to publish a comprehensive decarbonisation strategy.

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Boris Johnson outlined a 10-point plan to spur a “green industrial revolution”. The measures sent a political signal but were not enough to put the UK on track to meet its 2050 goal. Instead, it closed just over half the emissions gap to stay within the UK’s carbon budgets to 2032, according to analysis by Carbon Brief.

A spending review last week did little to boost the £3-4 billion of additional funding pledged within Johnson’s £12bn package of measures. In his speech, chancellor Rishi Sunak barely mentioned climate change, pushed ahead with a £27bn road-building programme and announced cuts to overseas aid.

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The UK prime minister’s 10-point plan released on Wednesday, a package of measures to create jobs and boost green investment in the economic recovery from Covid-19, sent an important political signal.

But Johnson has further to go to turn it into a comprehensive decarbonisation strategy and project the kind of leadership needed from the host of next year’s Cop26 UN climate summit.

Under current projections, the UK is not on track to achieve its previous goal of reducing emissions 80% from 1990 level by 2050, let alone the recently updated target of net zero emissions.

A back-of-the-envelope calculation by Simon Evans, policy editor at Carbon Brief, suggests the new measures would close just over half the emissions gap to stay within the UK’s carbon budgets to 2032.

Chris Stark, chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change, the UK government’s official climate advisor, described the announcement as “a vision statement rather than a plan” that could indicate a “a more fully-fledged UK strategy is now emerging”.

A policy paper on energy, an infrastructure investment package and a Treasury review of net zero are expected later this year.

Boris Johnson sets out 10-point plan to get UK on track for net zero

As host of the Cop26 climate summit, the UK has the opportunity to forge a way forward to cutting greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 and set the pace for climate action for the next decade.

Johnson, who inherited the Cop26 presidency bid from his predecessor Theresa May, will be in the limelight. The former London mayor, who served as foreign secretary in the previous Conservative government, is known for his lack of attention to detail and his off-script speeches, peppered with references to classical literature.

To be taken seriously, Johnson must lay out a credible plan for the UK to achieve its climate neutrality goal.

Johnson’s announcement “is important because it signals that [climate action] must be a priority for any government, but what it isn’t is a plan,” Matthew Pennycook, the Labour opposition’s shadow climate minister, told Climate Home News. “The policy gap is growing. This is a missed opportunity.”

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The statement did include some significant announcements, which, if delivered, will “take a big chunk off UK emissions over the next decade and beyond,” Stark said.

A pledge to phase out the sales of petrol and diesel cars by 2030 – 10 years earlier than previously proposed – would put the UK only behind Norway for the most ambitious goal in the personal transport stakes.

Guy Newey, a former government advisor turned strategy director at Energy Systems Catapult, which works to accelerate the transformation of the UK’s energy system, described the move as a “real political risk” for the Conservatives and an indication of the Johnson’s “seriousness” on climate action.

This is a step change for Johnson, who this time last year refused to take part in an debate on climate change with opposition leaders ahead of the December 2019 election.

Four years earlier, shortly after the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015, Johnson wrote in a Telegraph column that “global leaders were driven by a primitive fear that the present ambient warm weather is somehow caused by humanity; and that fear – as far as I understand the science – is equally without foundation”.

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A number of proposals that have been discussed by government officials in recent weeks, including a ban on fossil fuel financing overseas and the creation of a national investment bank to support green finance, were notably absent.

“I am concerned that there isn’t the focus that there needs to be on Cop26 at the centre of government and Number 10,” said Pennycook. “How can we be a climate leader… if we continue to pump money into fossil fuel overseas? We need more urgency, more ambition and a comprehensive approach,” he said.

Campaigners have also pointed out that only a third of £12 billion of investment pledged was new funding, which pales in comparison to an additional £16.5bn over four years committed to the defence budget on Thursday. And it’s much less than Germany and France’s respective €40bn and €30bn green stimulus packages.

Consultancy firm PWC estimates the UK needs to invest £40bn annually over the next 10 years into low carbon and digital infrastructure to get on track for the 2050 goal.

£4bn is “a fraction” of the government’s planned £27bn roadbuilding scheme, Caroline Lucas, the UK’s only Green lawmaker, pointed out on BBC’s Radio 4. “The resources aren’t there in order to make this a really strategic package. It completely fails to rise to the gravity of this moment,” she said.

But it was enough to spark tensions between Number 10 and the Treasury over how much money to invest in carbon-cutting efforts at a time the UK budget continues to be squeezed by addressing Covid-19.

Claire O’Neill, former Cop26 president-designate who was booted out of the role in February, said Johnson’s announcement had followed “a soap opera at the top” of government, which saw Johnson’s closest advisor Dominic Cummings and his communications director Lee Cains leave last week.

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In the run-up to Cop26, Tom Evans, researcher on geopolitics and diplomacy for think tank E3G, said Johnson will have to learn to balance political salience that drives momentum for greater action with the hard work of behind-the-scenes negotiations.

Johnson may enjoy “flashy moments and dazzling speeches” but the work of the Cop26 presidency is long and arduous, he said. “A 10-point plan does not work to solve adaptation finance”.

Climate observers are hoping a summit on 12 December, which the UK is co-hosting with the UN and France to mark the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement, will be a moment to reveal further domestic commitments.

The UK is expected to present a 2030 climate plan – or nationally determined contribution (NDC) – by the UN’s 2020 deadline. This will be its first solo submission to the UN, as the country leaves the EU.

To enhance its plan, the UK would have to adopt a target that is higher than 64% of emissions cuts from 1990 levels by 2030. Pennycook said anything below the high 60s would be insufficient, adding the Treasury has launched a review looking at a target range of 61-68%.

The WWF has called for the UK to reduce its emissions “at least in the region of 70%” by 2030.

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Biden’s team are hostile to prime minister Boris Johnson because of his perceived similarity to Donald Trump, his Brexit policy and personal criticism of Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton.

Despite this, analysts told Climate Home that Biden would be “pragmatic” and the two governments were likely to work closely together to increase the world’s climate action at November’s COP climate talks in Glasgow.

Both Biden and Trump have emphasised the similarities between Johnson and Trump. In December 2019, Biden said that Johnson was a “physical and emotional clone” of Trump. The outgoing president dubbed Johnson “Britain Trump” and praised him for taking the UK out of the EU.

Several members of Biden’s transition team have anonymously briefed against Johnson to the British media and  Tommy Vietor, who worked with Biden in Obama’s White House, called Johnson a “shape-shifting creep” who had made “racist comments about Obama”.

https://twitter.com/TVietor08/status/1325137653851828230

In 2016, Johnson wrote that Barack Obama had removed a bust of Winston Churchill and that “some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan President’s ancestral dislike of the British empire”. He likened Hilary Clinton to a “sadistic nurse in a mental hospital” in an article supporting her 2008 Presidential campaign.

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Richard Black, director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, said that Biden’s decades of experience in politics meant he was likely to be “pragmatic” about these comments. “The big thing will be how the government plays things from now on,” he said.

This was echoed by US Senator Chris Coons, an ally of Joe Biden and contender for the role of secretary of state. He told the BBC that, while he didn’t like the “part-Kenyan” comment, “rather than re-litigating or revisiting comments that may have been made days or years ago, I think [we will] reimagine our engagement with our vital allies around the world.”

In a brief message of congratulations to Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris, Johnson said he looked forward to working together on the shared priority of climate change. He repeated this theme in a later interview, saying: ““With President Biden in the White House . . . we have the real prospect of American global leadership in tackling climate change”. The UK’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told the BBC that he had spoken to Coons and that cyber, security and climate change were areas the two countries could co-operate on.

Congratulations @JoeBiden and @KamalaHarris pic.twitter.com/xrpE99W4c4

— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) November 7, 2020

Speaking before the US election, the chair of the UK’s Foreign Affairs Committee Tom Tugendhat told a webinar that climate change was a way for the UK government to repair its relations with Biden. He said: “If we’re sensible, what we will see is the UK offering the Biden White House a very generous share of the Cop talks in order to bring them in. Will it work? I don’t know but, at the moment, given the frostiness of the relationship between the putative White House and the actual Number 10 it does seem as though something will be needed.”

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Peter Betts, a Brit who previously led climate negotiations for the EU, told Climate Home that prospects for UK-US cooperation on climate change were “excellent”. He said: “A forward-leaning US administration will considerably increase the chances of major progress on climate issues, from NDC [climate plan] enhancement, to green recovery and debt relief, to reform of the international financial institutions.”

The UK has an opportunity to coordinate on these issues as conveners of the G7 in 2021, said Rachel Kyte, dean of the Fletcher School and former sustainable energy representative for the UN secretary general. However, she added the US’ focus would be on its relationships with the EU and China. “The UK has to accept that outside the EU it is on the edge of that critical three-way partnership.”

Black agreed. “Where does the Johnson government find a foothold in that?” he asked. “It can play most effectively if it is seen to be working hand in hand with the EU on climate change.” The UK and EU are approaching the end of drawn-out and heated negotiations over what trading arrangements will come into force when the UK fully leaves the EU on 1 January 2021. “If they’re still arguing next year then I think that will cast a real shadow on UK relationships with the US across all subjects,” Black said.

Black said that the UK should follow the French example from the 2015 Paris Agreement to avoid being “sidelined at its own summit”. “At Paris, the big thing was the US-China relationship which was then supplemented by lots of good diplomacy done by the French,” he said.

UK-US relations will also be shaped by trade deal negotiations. As it leaves the EU, the UK government is keen to secure free trade deals and the one with US is seen as the most important. According to Clare Healy, who has worked for the British Labour Party and the US Department of Energy, if the UK was to “hardwire” climate change into its trade deal, that might impress the Biden administration.

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Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the closure of the Department for International Development (Dfid) and the creation of a new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office during a parliamentary session on Tuesday.

Johnson told British lawmakers the coronavirus pandemic has shown the “distinctions between diplomacy and overseas development are artificial and outdated”.

He added: “We give as much aid to Zambia as we do to Ukraine, though the latter is vital for European security. We give ten times as much aid to Tanzania as we do to the six countries of the Western Balkans, who are acutely vulnerable to Russian meddling.”

His words have sparked concern international aid could be diverted from the most vulnerable countries, which are faced with intensifying climate impacts, to middle-income countries better placed to advance the UK’s interests overseas.

Coronavirus delays work to protect the world’s poor from climate shocks

The UK has the third biggest aid budget in the world. Last year, the government committed to double its contribution to international climate finance to $11.6 billion between 2021 and 2026.

The debate about whether foreign aid serves UK interests has been long running within Johnson’s Conservative party. He promised to use it to “maximise our influence” while maintaining a commitment to spend 0.7% of national income on aid.

The new department, to be established in early September, will be led by the UK’s foreign secretary Dominic Raab. He is to decide which countries will receive or cease to receive British aid, according to a single strategy for each nation.

Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development at the Independent University, Bangladesh, told Climate Home News the merger would “subordinate development assistance and climate finance to foreign policy”. This at a time when the UK is courting the world’s largest economies, including the US, for free trade deals after it leaves the European Union.

Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, a climate and energy campaign group based in Kenya, said the merger “looked like an attempt to allow money designed to be spent on the poorest people… to be used to oil the wheels of Britain’s post-Brexit trade deals and shore up its overseas security interests”.

“Africa is already suffering the brunt of the climate crisis, a crisis caused by industrialised nations like the UK,” he told CHN. “The UK’s wealth has been built on the resource extraction of Africa from Britain’s colonial past. This plundering and enslavement has held the continent back and is partly why African countries now need development aid.”

Sara Pantuliano, chief executive of the independent think-tank Overseas Development Institute (ODI), said aid “must not be politicised” and that an independent minister for international development reporting to the highest level of government enabled accountability.

“The government should be focusing on helping poorer countries to weather the [Covid-19] crisis and solving mounting global challenges like climate change rather than rearranging the bureaucratic furniture,” she said in a statement.

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Concerns have also been raised about the Foreign Office’s track record of managing development projects.

Kevin Watkins, chief executive of Save the Children, warned the UK’s foreign office had “no track-record in delivering results or transparency”.

How about this for an idea: wait for a pandemic that threatens to reverse hard-won gains in child survival, poverty and education, then merge the world’s leading aid agency (DFID) with a FCO that has no track-record in delivering results or transparency. Bad decision

— Kevin Watkins (@KevinAtSave) June 16, 2020

Leonardo Martinez-Diaz, former USAid policy director and director of the World Resources’ Institute’s Sustainable Finance Center, said the UK’s foreign aid agency had “set the gold standard for how bilateral aid should be done. This marks the end of an era.”

No fewer than three former UK prime ministers spoke out against the move, in a break from convention.

In a statement, former Labour PM Gordon Brown said Johnson was “abolishing one of the UK’s great international assets” and an agency that had become a world leader in providing development to vulnerable countries facing climate impacts.

“Unlike diplomacy, which often depends on secrecy and thus leaves scant audit trails, development efforts demand transparency, and are most effective when subjected to external scrutiny,” he wrote.

Tony Blair, whose Labour government created Dfid in 1997, slammed the decision as “wrong and regressive”.

In an extraordinary rebuke to his own party, Conservative ex-PM David Cameron agreed the decision was a “mistake”. “More could and should be done to co-ordinate aid and foreign policy but the end of Dfid will mean less expertise, less voice for development at the top table and ultimately less respect for the UK overseas,” he said in a tweet.

The timing of a complex exercise in government restructuring in the middle of a global pandemic has also been criticised as out of touch with people’s concerns.

Opposition leader Keir Starmer accused the prime minister of a “poor attempt at distraction” from news the economy contracted by an unprecedented 20% in April and the UK had the world’s third highest death toll from Covid-19.

Dfid said to contact Number 10 for comment. Neither Number 10 nor the Foreign and Commonwealth Office responded to CHN’s request for comment in time for publication.

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Although that might sound like a technical issue, it’s really not; his decision on how to manage it will be a crucial factor in setting the tone ahead of this year’s critical UN climate summit in Glasgow.

An NDC is a Nationally Determined Contribution – the pledge that each country makes to all others in terms of tackling its own greenhouse gas emissions.

Governments first put forward NDCs in 2015, in the run-up to the UN climate summit in Paris. In the Paris Agreement they ‘requested’ each other to put forward enhancements, or upgrades, starting this year.

Those upgrades could include a number of elements but the key expectation is that governments will accelerate their carbon-cutting for the decade to 2030.

Currently the assembled NDCs put the world on course for something like 3C of global warming by the end of the century – a marked contrast to their promise in Paris to ‘make efforts’ to hold it to 1.5C.

The case for upgrading NDCs strengthened markedly in 2018 when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in its landmark special report that getting on track for 1.5C basically means halving global carbon emissions by 2030.

Net zero goal ‘greatest commercial opportunity of our time,’ says Mark Carney

Although more than 100 governments have said they will put forward an enhanced NDC before the Glasgow summit, only three have actually done so. Question marks therefore hang over how many others will – and when – and how much they’re going to accelerate their carbon clampdowns.

So the issue before the UK government is: as self-proclaimed climate change leaders, how do they manage things in order to get the maximum number of other nations to take an ambitious step forward?

Having left the European Union, the UK must at some point submit a national NDC anyway – the bloc uses a joint one. And to burnish its leadership credentials and encourage other countries to step up on their NDCs, an obvious route is to go early and go large.

The obvious time to do this would be before the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in June. There, Boris Johnson will be able to talk NDCs directly with Narendra Modi of India, Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa and other leaders of Commonwealth countries able to step up a little.

The Commonwealth meeting is also the ideal stage on which the UK can proffer a package of measures to help the poorest nations on Earth (which includes a number of Commonwealth members) protect themselves against climate impacts and green their economies, which many will need in order to step up the pace on carbon-cutting.

UK’s Nigel Topping seeks broad movement to drive global economy to net zero by 2050

But here’s the problem: the UK can’t both go early and go large.

If the UK puts forward an NDC in or before June, it would have to base the headline number on its current legally-binding target for 2030, as laid down in the fifth national carbon budget. That’s a 57% reduction from the 1990 baseline.

On paper, that’s a marked advance from the EU’s NDC, which pledges a 40% cut.

But it would be just that – a paper advance – because national legislation, the Climate Change Act, already commits the UK to a 57% cut. No-one, including those other governments that the UK wants to impress, would give any credit for that.

Due to a technicality of the way UK emissions are currently accounted for, the 57% figure translates into an actual emissions reduction of 61%. If the UK leaves the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) at the end of the year when the Brexit ‘transition period’ ends, the 57% figure would then automatically become 61% – more impressive-sounding, but still absolutely the same level of ambition.

Given that the transition period ends on 31 December, there may be no clarity on this until late in the year, perhaps even after COP26.

The problem gets bigger.

The 57% or 61% cut by 2030 was set to be compatible with the previous 2050 target of an 80% cut in emissions, not with the current net zero target.

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So, the criticism would run – the UK is pitching in a number that’s not even compatible with its own legally-binding 2050 target and calling it ‘leadership’.

To add Mr Sharma’s headache, the government’s advisors, the Committee on Climate Change, will submit new official advice in September making clear what the net-zero-compatible 2030 target should be. Previous work suggests it’ll be in the range of 62-65% – again, corresponding to a higher number if the UK leaves the ETS.

Logically, the UK should make this new 2030 number the basis of its NDC. And it would represent a genuine increase in carbon-cutting ambition, and therefore be a credible marker of leadership.

However, the government can’t know exactly what the net-zero-compatible 2030 number is until the committee has calculated and published it. But September is far too late to begin using an ambitious NDC as a calling-card to entice other governments to step up.

To make matters worse, ministers could prolong the agony by deciding they need to discuss and debate the number and run their own calculations before accepting it.

So as things stand, the UK risks heading into the year, close up to the climate summit and possibly even beyond, asking others to rally behind a ‘climate leadership’ banner while touting an NDC, the most important international measure of leadership, which is demonstrably un-leader-like.

UK’s Heathrow airport expansion ruled unlawful over climate change

There are two ways in which Mr Sharma can square the circle.

One is by making an unequivocal commitment early in the year that the UK will publish an enhanced NDC in September, and that it will contain whatever 2030 number the Committee on Climate Change calculates.

The second is to publish an NDC containing the 57% or 61% figure early in the year, alongside an unequivocal commitment to upgrade it later in the year to reflect the committee’s advice. In both cases ministers will have to approve the recommended number in double-quick time.

Whichever route it wants to take, ministers need to decide soon – and for a successful COP26 with UK leadership at the centre of its offer, doing nothing except proudly proclaiming its current figure, even if expressed in the impressive-sounding form of an ETS-free 61%, is not an option.

The dilemma is clear. Decision time is due soon.

Richard Black is the director of the think-tank the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit. 

The post To be credible at Cop26, the UK needs a plan for its climate plan appeared first on Climate Home News.

Awaiting the appointment of a new president for Cop26 in Glasgow, Nick Bridge, the UK’s foreign secretary special representative for climate change, said: “We have been able to do a huge amount” abroad already, citing work with civil society and businesses.

“Every ambassador and high commissioner is out there working out what that drum beat of action is and a lot of it is already happening,” he told an event organised by the think tank Green Alliance in London on Tuesday.

The role of Cop26 president has been vacant since UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson abruptly sacked Claire O’Neill from the role at the end of January. A new Cop26 president is expected to be announced on Thursday, as part of a cabinet reshuffle.

Bridge said 50 new people had been recruited within the climate diplomacy service to drive the UK’s efforts to shift the world into taking more ambitious climate action. The Cop26 unit team is also “approaching 200 people,” he said.

“The resources are there,” he said, adding the whole diplomatic mission had been “instructed to have [climate change] as their top international priority this year”. “This is a whole government mindset.”

On a less global front, the UK is also aiming to negotiate trade deals in the wake of Brexit.

UK walks diplomatic tightrope for 2020 climate summit after shaky start

After she was sacked, O’Neill made a blistering personal attack on what she called Johnson’s lack of understanding of the importance of the talks, accusing Number 10 of failing to provide the necessary leadership to make the talks a success.

Last week, both former UK Prime Minister David Cameron and former foreign secretary William Hague refused to lead the UK’s presidency of the talks, raising concerns no senior candidate would take the job.

Cop26 is billed as the most important climate talks since countries signed the Paris Agreement in 2015. Governments are under pressure to submit toughen climate plans to the UN before the summit in November and bridge the gap between current levels of commitment and what is needed to limit global warming “well below 2C” by the end of the century.

At a time when global politics are not aligned with greater climate ambition, the UK presidency faces a steep climb to leverage the world’s largest emitters into greater action.

The UK successfully bid to preside over the Cop26 with Italy, which is due to host a preparatory meeting and youth event in Milan.

Bridge said said the UK needed to understand how every major country was taking decisions on climate action and “translate that into an economic vision” to provide “the positive momentum we need”.

Marshall Islands, Suriname, Norway upgrade climate plans before Cop26

Michael Gove, the UK’s former environment minister, also set out his vision for summit. He is heavily tipped to become the next Cop26 president.

But asked whether he wanted the job, Gove replied: “I am very happy of the job that I have and there are many, many, many talented people who could do the job of Cop president better that I ever could.”

However, Gove insisted he wanted to make sure the Glasgow talks “live up to the expectations of all those people who’ve so often felt let down by this process”, adding that the UK had “a moral responsibility to lead on climate” as the first country to industrialise.

He added domestic action from the US and Brazil at the sub-national level will be vital in driving ambition. The US will formally leave the Paris Agreement on 4 November – a day after the US presidential election. A Democrat victory could see the US re-join the deal within a couple of month.

Gove described his aspiration for success at the talks as the acceptance that “the need to act leads to action that is irreversible, accelerating and inclusive”, insisting that adaptation and resilience, nature-based solutions and greening of financial flows would need to be at the heart of the UK’s strategy.

He also suggested making the talks “the most transparent ever” by livestreaming key meetings in the negotiations, which he said would prevent governments from saying one thing in public sessions and another in private meetings.

UN Climate Change already livestreams all plenary negotiations as well as a number of public meetings and press conferences. But governments and negotiators have long used closed door meetings to make progress and flesh out contentious issues outside the public eye.

The post UK climate diplomacy ‘already happening’ for Cop26 despite leadership vacuum appeared first on Climate Home News.

With nine months to go before the summit, or Cop26, the UK faces a steep climb to provide the confidence and diplomatic lift the world needs to galvanise political leaders into taking more ambitious action and curb greenhouse gas emissions growth.

But preparations for the summit have been off to a rocky start – and the job of rallying countries into bolder action could prove to get tougher yet.

Last week, UK prime minister Boris Johnson sacked former clean growth minister Claire O’Neill as Cop26 president. Her replacement is expected to be announced as part of a cabinet reshuffle in the coming days.

As she went, O’Neill slammed Johnson for showing no leadership over preparations for the summit, which she said were “miles off track”. “He doesn’t get it,” she told the BBC of the summit’s diplomatic gravitas.

Johnson launched Cop26 on Tuesday without a president to oversee the summit, nor a clear strategy to leverage the world’s largest emitters into submitting tougher climate plans before the Glasgow talks.

He urged all countries to follow the UK’s lead in setting net zero emissions goals before the end of the year – a goal that the UK itself is not on track to meet and that none of the world’s large emerging economies have signed up for so far.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world is also failing to show enthusiasm for upgrading their climate plans.

Under a UN decision to implement the Paris Agreement, February 9 is the theoretical deadline for countries to communicate new or updated climate plans this year. Only the Marshall Islands and Suriname have so far met the deadline.

In a must-read report, Alister Doyle looks at the legality and implications of the missed deadline.

Back in the UK, Johnson does have a vision, one of a “global Britain” after Brexit.

How the government balances this double act of re-defining its place in the world while calling on leader to take greater climate action will be key to the success of its leadership this year.

Indeed, some confidence remains that the UK’s diplomatic leverage could still deliver a positive outcome at Cop26. But in private, negotiators are expressing concerns that time for action is now strikingly tight.

African youths’ call

When African youth activist Vanessa Nakate was cropped out from a picture at the World Economic Forum in Davos, it was one example too many of the lack of attention to the voices of those that are most affected by climate impacts.

The incident, which sparked outrage across the world, also led young African activists to highlight the lack of action by both African and world leaders to tackle the climate crisis on the continent.

“The biggest threat to action in my country and in Africa is the fact that those who are trying as hard as possible to speak up are … not able to tell their stories,” warned Nakate.

Turbines

A record 3.6 gigawatts of new offshore wind capacity was installed across Europe in 2019. As the cost of building offshore wind farms continues to fall, the economic incentive for the continent to embrace wind power should be a given.

But the pace of deployment is too slow to meet the EU’s 2050 net zero emissions target, according to the industry.

The EU Commission estimates Europe will need between 230 and 450 GW of offshore wind by 2050 to decarbonise its energy system. At the end of 2019, total capacity reached 22 GW. Still a long way to go.

This week’s top stories

• World misses symbolic February deadline to ratchet up climate action before Cop26
• UK walks diplomatic tightrope for 2020 climate summit after shaky start
• Offshore wind deployment boom ‘too slow’ to meet EU climate target
• Democratic contenders in Iowa caucus aim to rejoin Paris accord in green goals
• UK’s Boris Johnson urges all countries to set net zero emissions goals in 2020
• UK government drops Claire O’Neill as president of Cop26 summit
• Youth activists urge African governments to do more to curb climate change

The post ‘Miles off track’ – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

The tension between the UK government’s priorities was on display this week as Prime Minister Boris Johnson both set out his vision for a global Britain and formally launched Cop26.

Outlining his “global Britain” campaign, Johnson declared his government was “ready for the great multi-dimensional game of chess in which we engage in more than one negotiation at once”.

Much hope rides on the expectations that the game will include climate diplomacy.

Christiana Figueres, former executive secretary of UN Climate Change, told Climate Home News that Cop26 in Glasgow “was a post-Brexit opportunity to show that despite Brexit, Britain continues to have important leadership on global issues”.

But nine months before the UK is due to preside over the biggest diplomatic event it has ever hosted, there are no clear indications of how the government will deliver the confidence lift the world needs to deliver tougher climate targets.

UK’s Boris Johnson urges all countries to set net zero emissions goals in 2020

At the Cop26 launch on Tuesday, Johnson, who had just sacked Claire O’Neill, the UK’s former clean growth minister, as Cop president, had little to say about the government’s diplomatic strategy for the summit.

He called on every country to follow the UK’s lead by setting net zero emissions goal this year and announced plans to bring forward a UK ban on sales of new diesel and petrol cars by five years, to 2035.

The climate talks in Glasgow have been billed as a critical moment for countries to revive the multilateralism that underpinned the Paris Agreement and leverage the world’s largest emitters into taking bolder climate action.

O’Neill, who was appointed Cop26 president in July, would have been the first Cop president not to hold any ministerial role.  The government said a minister would be replacing her.

Some observers interpreted the move as a positive signal that Johnson’s team understands the need for a political heavyweight to take the lead.

But the fallout between Johnson and O’Neill has also raised questions about the Prime Minister’s grasp of the diplomatic gravitas of hosting such an important climate meeting.

In a strongly worded rebuke letter, O’Neill accused Johnson of not giving the summit the attention and resources it needed, with preparations “miles off track”.

“In my judgement this isn’t a pretty place to be and we owe the world a lot better,” she wrote, calling on the government to make the climate talks the top of its priorities.

“You had a vision for Brexit and you got Brexit done….Please get this done too,” she urged. Johnson has called on the EU to agree a Canada-style free trade deal with the UK before the end of the year.

UK government drops Claire O’Neill as president of Cop26 summit

Diplomats have told CHN the UK’s work on Cop26 had only just started when O’Neill was dropped from the role. They expressed eagerness for the UK to start its diplomatic work as soon as possible.

Speaking to CHN before O’Neill was removed, Rachel Kyte, dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Massachusetts, said the UK was “expected to be able to do joined-up governance” without having to start again from scratch.

Johnson is anticipated to announce a new Cop26 president as part of a cabinet reshuffle, reported to take place next week.

The late timing of the announcement is putting more pressure on the UK to deliver greater ambition while finalising a number of negotiation issues left unresolved at the last UN talks in Madrid.

“Time is tight, but there is still enough time and enough leverage in the mix for the UK presidency to make some headway,” David Waskow, director of the World Resources Institute’s international climate initiative, told CHN.

Once a new Cop26 president is appointed, it will be “a matter of rolling out that diplomatic effort as quickly and assertively as possible,” he added.

Possible candidates to replace O’Neill are already under intense scrutiny. For Jennifer Tollmann, an expert in climate diplomacy at think tank E3G, the new appointment will be “key to signalling to the rest of the world how serious [the UK government] is about the Cop”.

The new president will need to have good background understanding of the climate process, diplomatic experience and the commitment and determination to make the summit a success, Waskow and Tollmann agreed.

“It’s really important that the Prime Minister is fully attached to the outcome of the Cop because otherwise we will not get the top political attention that the Cop needs,” Nick Mabey, chief executive of E3G, said in an event at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in London last month.

Among those rumoured for the job are former environment minister Michael Gove, former foreign secretary William Hague and environment and climate minister Zac Goldsmith.

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Inside the Cop26 presidency team, about 150 civil servants have been brought in to push ambition to the rest of the world. “Diplomats are ready to go, they are waiting for marching orders,” a UK official told CHN.

Even with the best geopolitical outlook, the scale of the Cop26 challenge is enormous.

Countries are under pressure to enhance their climate plans to bridge the gap between current emissions reduction pledges and what is necessary to limit global warming “well below 2C” above pre-industrial times.

Global emissions need to fall by 7.6% every year until 2030 for the world to be on track to limit warming to the toughest goal in the Paris Agreement of 1.5C, according to UN Environment. And global carbon emissions rose 0.6% in 2019 to a new record high.

Under the Paris deal, countries are due to “communicate or update” their 2030 climate plans by the end of the year. Countries have also agreed that successive climate plans “will represent a progression” and reflect their “highest possible ambition”.

This rachet-up mechanism, which underpins the Paris accord, is being tested for the first time.

But the geopolitical momentum for climate action is stalled, making the task ahead even greater.

The US will officially leave the Paris Agreement on 4 November, a day after the US presidential election, under a withdrawal by President Donald Trump. Leading Democratic candidates say they will immediately apply to rejoin if they beat him.

Irreconcilable rift cripples UN climate talks as majority stand against polluters

Meanwhile, entrenched nationalism, a trade war and slower growth have seen China and India bump climate action down their priority list.

Efforts to bolster momentum last year have failed. At Cop25, countries failed to agree on the rules to set up a global carbon market – an issue that needs to be resolved this year – and failed to make a clear call for more ambition.

“Cop25 really increased the diplomatic and confidence lift the UK needs to provide,” Mabey said.

The UK presidency is now largely dependent on the outcome of an EU-China summit in October, when the EU is hoping to broker a climate deal with Beijing to inject momentum into the process.

At home, the UK’s credibility lies on its own ability to develop a concrete plan to achieve its 2050 net zero emissions goal.

Last year, the UK was the first major developed economy to set a net zero goal into law. Under the Paris Agreement, all countries are expected to work out “mid-century, long-term low greenhouse gas emission development strategies” by the end of 2020.

“The year ahead is an acid test of the new [UK] government’s climate credibility,” Chris Stark, chief executive of the UK’s Committee on Climate Change, wrote last week.

But analysis by the environmental think tank Green Alliance published on Monday found the UK to be off track to meet its 2050 target.

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For Mabey, the Paris Agreement hangs in the balance of the Cop26 outcome. “Failure is really on the agenda for Glasgow. If Glasgow fails then the Paris regime fails, and we lose another five to ten years building another regime,” he said.

In her letter to Johnson, O’Neill outlined a seven-point action plan to ramp up climate action. Strengthening countries’ climate plans and establishing carbon neutrality as the climate ambition goal topped the list.

Introducing a “properly-funded global package for adaptation and resilience building”, a focus on nature-based solutions and decarbonising finance flows also made the list.

The appointment of former governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney and incoming UN special envoy for climate action and finance and former We Mean Business CEO Nigel Topping as the UK’s climate action champion has further boosted the UK’s finance agenda.

Kyte told CHN it was “absolutely appropriate to put finance right at the top of [Cop26’s] agenda” both in a real economy sense but also as part of the negotiations.

“Finance is the essential ingredient in moving the transition forward quickly,” said Kyte. “It is the essential glue for speeding up the action that we need.”

The post UK walks diplomatic tightrope for 2020 climate summit after shaky start appeared first on Climate Home News.

“We were the first to industrialise, so we have a responsibility to lead the way,” he told the audience of selected reporters at the Science Museum in London on Tuesday to outline plans for Cop26 in Glasgow.

“We have to deal with out CO2 emissions and that is why the UK is calling for us to get to net zero as soon as possible – for every country to announce credible targets to get there [sic]. That is what we want in Glasgow,” he said during the event attended by Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and British naturalist broadcaster David Attenborough.

The UK and Italy won a joint a bid to host this year’s critical climate summit, with Milan hosting a preparatory meeting and a youth event and Glasgow hosting the summit.

The UK was the first major economy to set a net zero emissions target by 2050 in law last summer and Johnson said he would “lead a global call to reach net zero”.

Johnson launched Cop26 despite the fact the summit is lacking a president to facilitate it.

His speech was overshadowed by an intensifying fallout with Claire O’Neill, the UK’s former clean growth minister, who was sacked as Cop26 president on Friday evening.

UK government drops Claire O’Neill as president of Cop26 summit

Hours before Johnson’s speech, O’Neill made a blistering personal attack on Johnson accusing him of failing to understand the diplomatic gravitas of the summit.

“We have seen a huge lack of engagement and leadership,” she told the BBC of Johnson’s attitude towards Cop26. “He also admitted to me that he doesn’t really understand it,” she said, adding that “others around him do”.

In an explosive letter addressed to Prime Minister Johnson, O’Neill said preparations for the summit she was in charge of were “miles off track” and accused Johnson of not giving the summit the attention and resources it needed.

In her letter, O’Neill described government in-fighting over who should be accountable for the talks preparations, ballooning budgets and the lack of planning for international engagements to the summit.

“In my judgement this isn’t a pretty place to be and we owe the world a lot better,” she wrote, calling for “a whole government reset” which would move the summit to the “Premier League” of the government’s priorities.

“You had a vision for Brexit and you got Brexit done. Please get this done too,” she added.

Johnson did not respond to questions over his motives for sacking O’Neill.

Rebecca Newsom, head of politics for Greenpeace UK, said the UK government needed “to rise above petty politics” and “lead by example” by “get[ting] its own house in order”.

Youth activists urge African governments to do more to curb climate change

Some observers had hoped O’Neill’s replacement would be announced during the summit’s launch given the short timescale to the November summit. The next Cop26 president is now expected to be announced during a UK cabinet reshuffle tipped to take place next week.

Alex Scott, senior policy advisor on Cop26 for the environmental think tank E3G, told Climate Home News a new appointment needed to be made as soon as possible.

“We are really hoping that there is some clarity on this as soon as possible because of how late in the day it is now and the gravity of the diplomatic task ahead,” she said.

“What this process is going to need is a little more Boris Johnson level engagement. We need to see a lot more commitment from the prime minister on the Cop strategy,” she added.

Cop26 is widely considered the most important climate summit since the Paris summit in 2015.

Countries are under pressure to increase their climate plans to bridge the gap between current emissions reduction pledges and what is necessary to limit global warming “well below 2C” above pre-industrial times.

Current temperature projections set warming to be on track for more than 3C by the end of the century.

Under the Paris Agreement, countries are also due to publish their long-term decarbonisation strategies before the end of the year.

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Last year, the UK won praise for setting a national carbon neutrality goal for 2050 but has taken few steps to develop a comprehensive plan to meet it.

Analysis by the environmental think tank Green Alliance published on Monday found the UK was off track to meet its 2050 target.

Much of the UK’s credibility for demanding the world to achieve carbon neutrality by the middle of the century relies on its own ability to come up with a meaningful plan to reach its own 2050 target.

Johnson used his speech to launch a “year of climate action” in the UK. He also announced plans to bring forward a ban on petrol and diesel cars, which includes hybrid cars, to 2035 – five years earlier than initially planned.

Responding to the announcement, the Green Alliance said this was a “move in the right direction” but “isn’t nearly ambitious enough” to meet the UK’s decarbonisation goals. Instead, it called for the ban to come into force in 2030.

Newsom said cars were “an important piece of the puzzle” towards decarbonising the UK economy but could not be seen in isolation.

“Expanding airports, handing out new licenses for oil drilling, and putting billions of taxpayers’ money behind climate-wrecking fossil fuel projects all over the world will not get us to the right destination,” she added.

On Tuesday, the UK’s aviation sector also announced a commitment to become carbon neutral by 2050 mainly by offsetting flights’ emissions – a measure that heavily relies on the use of carbon offsets.

The post UK’s Boris Johnson urges all countries to set net zero emissions goals in 2020 appeared first on Climate Home News.

That was UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s message to African heads of state gathered in London this week to talk investments.

As the UK prepares to pull out of the EU, it has turned some of its attention to the African continent, where it intends to compete for business.

Johnson promised the UK would end all direct support for coal mining and coal-fired power plants overseas. Instead, he pledged to help African countries “extract and use oil and gas in the cleanest, greenest way possible” while “turbocharging our support for solar, wind and hydro”.

In the last few years, the UK had largely stopped financing coal mines and coal-fired power plants abroad but continues to spend billions in supporting oil and gas projects. About £2bn worth of oil and gas deals in Africa were announced shortly after the summit.

Environmentalists blasted hypocrisy, warning the announcement was “a drop in the ocean” compared with ongoing support for foreign oil and gas projects.

Carbon sinks

In other UK news, a fifth of the country’s agricultural land needs to be released for climate mitigation if it is to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, government advisers have said.

That means planting trees, restoring peatlands and soils and growing bioenergy crops with carbon capture and storage. Consumption of carbon-intensive food such as beef, lamb and diary also needs to be reduced by a fifth and so does food waste.

The report comes as the UK’s first climate citizen assembly is due to meet this weekend to thrash out solutions to achieve the net zero emissions goal by 2050.

Ireland and France have also used citizens assembly to inspire climate policies and Spain could soon follow suit.

‘Prophets of doom’

Climate change was the hot topic in Davos. Greta Thunberg reminded the world’s rich and powerful of the science, warning the 1.5C goal risked slipping out of reach as the world rapidly consumes its remaining carbon budget to limit warming below the Paris deal temperature target.

“We don’t need to lower emissions, our emissions have to stop,” she said.

Donald Trump lamented missing Thunberg’s speech. There was no eye roll this time but the US president hit back at climate activists, denouncing them as “prophets of doom” as he boasted about the economy. Expect more of this in the run-up to November’s presidential election.

Gullies

In Nigeria, where climate change is causing more intense downpours, land is opening up under people’s feet, swallowing homes, farms, businesses and roads.

The erosion crisis is exacerbated by more frequent landslides and has been estimated to cost up to $100 million every year. Up to 90% of agricultural yield have been lost as a result in some areas.

Linus Unah reports from Nigeria.

Icy ruling  

Norwegian plans to drill for more oil and gas in the Arctic do not violate people’s rights for a healthy environment.

The ruling by the Oslo Court of Appeals endorsed a previous court decision vindicating the government’s handing out of oil exploration licences in the Arctic. However, the court acknowledged that emissions from burning Norwegian fossil fuels abroad should be included in assessing environmental damage.

Greenpeace, which brought the lawsuit, said it would take the case to the Supreme Court.

Quick hits

• Erosion crisis swallows homes and livelihoods in Nigeria
• UK to stop funding coal abroad but will help Africa with oil, gas
• Thunberg says only ‘eight years left’ to avert 1.5°C warming
• Trump criticises ‘prophets of doom’ in Davos and touts fossil fuels
• UK must cut land use emissions by two thirds to meet 2050 goal, advisers warn
• Oslo court backs Arctic oil exploration in defeat for environmentalists

And in climate conversations

• 2020 may be ‘last opportunity’ to limit warming to 1.5°C

The post ‘Trundling over to Africa’ – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

Johnson made the remarks at the opening of the UK-Africa investment summit in London – a one-day event which signalled the UK’s intent to compete for African business with China, Russia, Germany and France – all of which have strengthened their investment strategy on the continent.

16 African leaders attended the summit planned a day before political and business leaders meet in Davos, Switzerland. Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyatta, Nigeria’s Muhammadu Buhari and Paul Kagame of Rwanda all came to London.

The summit was also an opportunity to push climate action as one of the UK’s key diplomatic priorities, ahead of hosting this year’s UN climate talks – known as Cop26 – in Glasgow in November.

Johnson acknowledged that most African countries were on the frontline of climate impacts and biodiversity loss.

He committed to end “new direct official development assistance” to thermal coal mining and coal power plants overseas, including aid money and loan guarantees and support from the UK’s export credit agency.

“There is no point in the UK reducing the amount of coal we burn if we then trundle over to Africa and line our pockets by encouraging African states to use more of it,” he said.

2020 may be ‘last opportunity’ to limit warming to 1.5°C

Instead, Johnson said the UK would help support Africa’s transition to “lower and zero carbon alternatives”.

“First by helping you to extract and use oil and gas in the cleanest, greenest way possible – and we are world leaders in that and have much to share – but also by turbocharging our support for solar, wind and hydro and all the other carbon free sources of energy that surround us,” he told African heads of state and business leaders.

In practice, very little of the UK’s development money has been used to support coal projects overseas in recent years.

Responding to a UK parliamentary inquiry last year, Claire O’Neill, the UK’s former clean growth minister and now Cop26 president, said the UK government’s export finance agency had “not funded any new coal-fired power-plants overseas since 2002”.

A spokeswoman for the Department of International Development (Dfid) said the department had not supported coal-fired power plants abroad since 2012. Support would, however, be made available for decommissioning projects, she added.

Labour MP Matthew Pennycook said this made it “difficult to see this as anything other than tokenistic”.

“The more pertinent issue is the UK’s ongoing support for overseas oil and gas projects. Act on that, Prime Minister,” he tweeted.

“This is greenwash and hypocrisy of the highest order,” Molly Scott Cato, Green MEP for the South West of England, told CHN. “This is a reminder of what has effectively been UK policy for nearly 20 years; hardly an announcement.”

Erosion crisis swallows homes and livelihoods in Nigeria

It is unclear what proportion of the UK’s current development and export credit budget will be affected by the announcement.

Sarah Wykes, lead analyst on climate change and energy at the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (Cafod), told CHN that between 2010 and 2017, Cafod identified £84million the UK government had spent on coal equipment – “a tiny proportion” of all spending, she said.

“It’s good that the government has now closed that loophole. It’s a step forward but a drop in the ocean” compared with oil and gas support, she added. “But if the government is serious about ending energy poverty in Africa, it needs to invest in decentralised renewable energy,” she said.

However, the UK government has continued to pour significant amounts of public funds to support oil and gas projects abroad.

During the 2018-2019 financial year alone, the UK’s export finance (UKEF) agency provided more than £2billion ($2.6bn) in support and loans guarantees to oil and gas projects overseas, according to an analysis by DeSmog UK.

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A recent report by Cafod also found that between 2010 and 2017, 60% of the UK’s support for energy in developing countries was fossil fuel energy. During that time, 97% of the UK export finance’s support for energy projects – or £3.6bn ($4.7) – went to fossil fuel developments.

Andrew Norton, director of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), described the announcement as “a first step in the right direction”.

“But it needs to go further,” he added, calling on the UK to “stop subsidising all fossil fuel exploration and production”.

Adam McGibbon, a senior climate campaigner at Global Witness, told CHN, the announcement would make “very little difference to the UK’s lack of climate ambition”.

“It leaves untouched the billions in oil and gas support that the UK will continue to spend worldwide,” he said.

The post UK to stop funding coal abroad but will help Africa with oil, gas appeared first on Climate Home News.

PIc: Jim Trodel/Flickr

By Sophie Yeo

London has launched an investigation into how climate change will impact its economy, which is at risk from flooding, heat waves and other international pressures.

The London Assembly which is conducting the investigation, will produce a report by October, examining the resilience of the UK’s capital – dominated by finance, but also home to theatres, universities and shops – to climate change.

Five climate experts kicked off the investigation on Tuesday. They told the London Assembly’s economic committee, chaired by the Green Party’s Jenny Jones, that London faces disruption from flooding, heat waves and disrupted supply chains as temperatures increase.

The report is likely to come as a test to London mayor Boris Johnson, who has previously expressed doubt over the science of global warming, writing in January that he has an “open mind” about the possibility the world could instead be heading towards a “mini ice age”.

Finance

For London’s financial sector, the threat is one to be taken seriously.

Climate change is the “biggest impact emerging risk we look at,” said Nick Beecroft, a climate specialist at insurance company Lloyd’s of London. He added that, for the financial services, it was “probably the most pressing test of our claim to be innovators.”

“What we’re looking at is a global systemic issue. London is a critical node in that system through which is risk is transmitted and amplified.”

In 2011, financial and insurance services in London contributed £125.4 billion in added value to the UK’s economy, 45.8% of the total across the UK.

This makes London the second largest financial centre in the world after New York. Globally, the UN’s science panel warns that sea level rise as a result of climate change could wipe out US$ 13trillion worth of assets.

Another risk to London’s financial services is the possibility that fossil fuel assets are currently overvalued, the panel said. Around one third of current reserves must stay in the ground is the world is going to stay within safe limits of warning.

Small and medium-sized enterprises will suffer the most, said Chris Rapley, chair of the London Climate Change Partnership, as they are less equipped to deal with future threats.

These companies “represent about 90% of the business in London” most at risk from climate change, he said.

Cosmopolitan

London, which sits along the banks of the Thames, is vulnerable to flooding. This winter, the Thames Barrier closed a record 50 times, making it the busiest period in its history. Figures provided by the Greater London Authority show that up to 680,000 properties are at risk.

The city’s infrastructure will have to be planned to cope with the rising risks of climate change, agreed the panel – including Crossrail, a £14.8 billion project to update the city’s railways.

But the biggest challenge for the London economy will come from abroad, said Daniel Dowling, a climate change consultant with PwC, as big businesses find their supply chains disrupted by changing weather patterns abroad.

“If London is going to stay ahead of the pack, it needs to map these climate dependencies abroad,” he said. For instance, a recent study by Asda suggested that 95% of their fresh produce would be affected by climate change.

The impact of climate change overseas could also affect travel and cultural links, said Sam Fankhauser, co-director of the Grantham Institute at the London School of Economics. “It’s clearly important to London because it’s such a cosmopolitan place,” he said.

Selling

But there are also opportunities for London, said Juliette Daniels, from the London Climate Change Partnership. London’s green economy is worth around £25 billion, which the city could export abroad.

“Rotterdam and New York are putting a lot of effort and governmental support behind selling those services,” she said. “London is a leader in adaptation, but it should be doing more to promote that.”

These services could include consultancy and engineering expertise for city infrastructure and business, but also between sectors like music and theatre.

In 2009, West End theatre contributed around £2 billion to the economy, and there are initiatives underway to help make the sector more sustainable, such as the consultancy Julie’s Bicycle – “an extraordinary story and something others are interested in,” said Rapley.

The report will make recommendations to London mayor, Boris Johnson, on how to climate-proof the city, to which he is obliged to respond.

The post How will London’s economy cope with climate change? appeared first on Climate Home News.

Dhaka is the city with the highest population growth in the world (Source: Flickr/Sandeep Menon)

By Sophie Yeo

A summit of the world’s biggest cities will get underway in South Africa today, where mayors will discuss urban solutions to climate change.

The C40 meeting will bring together local leaders from across the world, providing a forum to exchange ideas on how cities can become efficient and resilient in the face of a warming planet.

C40 was created in 2005 by former London mayor Ken Livingstone to help the leaders spearheading action at a local level share policy and technology innovations with their counterparts across the globe.

Starting as a coalition of 18 megacities, it has now expanded to encompass 58 cities across five continents, including Addis Ababa, Mumbai, Caracas, Toronto and Milan. It represents 1 in 12 people worldwide, and 18% of the global GDP.

The three-day summit, launching today in Johannesburg, is the fifth biennial meeting of the mayors.

Taking action

While the cogs of national and international politics turn slowly when it comes to climate change, cities are already finding and implementing solutions.

For Leo Johnson, an analyst at PwC and brother of London mayor Boris Johnson, it is these vast yet manageable collections of humanity that are driving change in sustainable thinking.

“It’s not just that you’ve got urbanisation as an emerging dominant trend,” he told RTCC. “You’ve got cities where you’ve got a different model of leadership and of government that allows you to break through the gridlock of national and international negotiations.

“Cities are where you can get stuff done, so anything like C40 that’s about spreading best practise and seeing how cities can collaborate and do stuff together, you betcha.”

Rapid urbanisation means that the number of city dwellers is at an all-time high of about 3.5 billion. The UN projects that this will nearly double in the next 30 to 40 years. Almost all of this growth will be in developing countries.

Cities are on the frontline when it comes to climate change, both in terms of feelings its impacts and developing solutions. Extreme weather events are most expensive when they hit highly built up areas, due to the damage that they cause. According to a Munich Re report, severe flooding in Germany and central Europe was the most expensive natural disaster in 2013.

“If a flood hits, a typhoons strikes, a disaster occurs, cities are always the first responders,” said Katrina Borromeo, who works with ICLEI, a network of towns and cities that works to improve environmental initiatives. “They are implementing decisions impacting on climate change every single day.”

The International Energy Agency said in 2008 that cities are responsible for about 70% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, despite only housing half of the world’s population.

International action

There is a growing recognition at an international level of the role that cities play in implementing immediate solutions to climate change, as UN diplomats struggle to seal the deal on a 2015 treaty that will commit national governments to reduce their carbon emissions.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appointed Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, as the UN special envoy for cities and climate change last week—a high level appointment which the World Resources Institute called an “inspired choice”.

While in office as mayor, Bloomberg sought to make New York a model of sustainability. After Hurricane Sandy, he proposed a $20 billion package to made the city more resilient to extreme weather. It is expected that his adoption into the UN will reenergise attempts at city level to mobilise action and raise the political will to tackle climate change.

UN climate chief Christiana Figueres is to attend this year’s C40 summit, where she will give a keynote speech on Wednesday.

She says: “As we approach 2015, now is the time for city leaders to interact more effectively with national governments, to ensure coherence in the design, and collaboration in the implementation of climate change policies and measures.”

Big changes

But it will require something of an overhaul in the way cities are governed if they are to become the models of sustainability that the C40 mayors envisage, says Johnson. Devolved power, which places citizens at the heart of development, is what will enable creativity to flourish, he says.

“This is the era of the massive small. Big is dead. It’s about putting into the hands of people the power to adapt, the power to be resilient,” he says.

“It’s not about massive concrete infrastructure. It’s not about shipping water across China from one patch that’s got water temporarily to another that lacks it. It’s about enabling local resilience.”

Such instances of small-scale action are already afoot. In Seoul, South Korea, a voluntary No Driving Day programme has decreased traffic by 3.7%, improving air quality across the city. Participants in the scheme receive rewards if they keep their car off the road for one day a week, which is monitored through a radio tagging system.

In Berlin, energy efficiency upgrades to buildings have saved €10.5 million, or 26% of usual energy costs.

“What we want are not smart cities but smart citizens,” says Johnson. “The cities that will thrive will be the ones that will unleash the capacity of their citizens the best, that attract the most capable and creative citizens and then unleash their capacities.

“The job of a mayor, of a great city leader, is to do that. It’s the enabling state, it’s the government as platform. It’s that which will create this extraordinary flourishing bottom-up city.”

The post Urban leaders gather for C40 cities and climate summit in South Africa appeared first on Climate Home News.

(Pic: The Climate Group)

By Nilima Choudhury

London is set to embark on the UK’s largest energy efficient road lighting project, installing 35,000 street lamps by 2016 at a cost of £10.9 million.

LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, are up to 70% more efficient than traditional bulbs, and are part of London Mayor Boris Johnson’s target to reduce CO2 emissions in the UK capital 60% by 2025.

The LED programme aims to cut CO2 by around 9,700 tonnes and contribute towards approximately £1.85 million of savings for Transport for London (TfL) a year.

“With tens of thousands of lights marking the way on our road network it makes complete sense to focus energy and resources on bringing them up to 21st century standards,” Johnson said.

“This is the largest investment to modernise street lighting on major roads in our capital’s history and will not only cut carbon emissions and save money but it will also lead to even better and safer roads for Londoners.”

According to US-based WinterGreen Research, the LED lighting market will grow by 45% per year until 2019 and go from a value of $4.8 billion in 2012 to $42 billion in 2019.

Around the world in LEDs:

New York, US: Set to be the largest conventional to LED lighting conversion project in the US, the city began with pilot tests in 2009 which are set for completion in 2007. New York City will convert 250,000 streetlights to LEDs, costing $10 million, but will save the city $14 million a year.

Toronto, Canada: At a cost of $11 million annually, Toronto currently operates about 160,000 streetlights which make up a significant portion of the City’s energy usage. If Toronto converted all of its streetlights to LED, this would not only drastically reduce operating and maintenance costs, but would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 18,000 tonnes.

Kolkata, India: A pilot project in 2010 replaced 273 lamps with LEDs and is nearing completion. The lights cut electricity bills by Rs 11 lakh ($18,000). If all 180,000 streetlights in the city, needing an investment of $8 million, were to be replaced, a total of 35,604 kilowatts or Rs 75 crore ($1.2 million) a year would be saved.

Adelaide, Australia: By 2020, Council plans to replace all of the City’s 4,800 public lights with LED technology. This will halve electricity use from lighting and reduce carbon emissions by 1,300 tonnes of CO2 per annum. The Council has also begun replacing its public lighting with LED technology.

Hong Kong, China: The government is implementing a three-phase replacement of traffic signal lamps at 1,900 road junctions with about 80,000 LED modules. The project commenced in September 2008 and was completed in the summer 2012, at a cost of HK$ 140 million ($18 million).

The post London aims for £1.85m per year saving with LED roll-out appeared first on Climate Home News.

The extent of shale gas deposits in London should be clear by the end of 2013, allowing London’s Mayor Boris Johnson to make a decision on whether these can be exploited.

Johnson’s environmental advisor Matthew Pencharz stressed to RTCC that it was unlikely central London would become home to a series of drilling rigs, but said all low carbon options needed to be explored.

“If there are deposits in London – there might be, but we won’t know until later in the year. But it’s worth having a look,” he said, adding: “The government is obviously talking about the future of shale gas – we don’t know if there’s any in London – there might be on the very outer edges of London – we’re not going to be digging up Trafalgar Square.”

Last week Mayor Boris Johnson, who is close to Prime Minister David Cameron, informed Daily Telegraph readers that ‘no stone should be left unfracked’ to keep the lights on.

“It is glorious news for humanity. It doesn’t need the subsidy of wind power. I don’t know whether it will work in Britain, but we should get fracking right away,” he wrote.

The Mayor’s office stressed that drilling for shale gas would not happen in Trafalgar Square. (Source: Diliff)

Despite huge concerns over the environmental impact of fracking [read our analysis here], it does appear shale gas could contribute to the Mayor’s plans to produce 25% of London’s energy from local sources by 2025.

As outlined in Johnson’s recently published 2020 Vision, the Mayor wants to promote local energy production to keep London’s lights on, boost investment and growth in London’s low carbon economy.

“Power generation [from shale gas] has the real potential of giving us cleaner, greener, more secure and cheaper in retail energy,” said Pencharz.

In order to encourage investment in non-polluting sources of energy, City Hall has applied to the UK energy regulator for a licence that allows the Greater London Authority to buy excess electricity produced by residents and public bodies.

It could then sell it on, at cost price, to railway operators, the police and hospitals.

Pollution

Air quality is a major issue for London residents. Recent figures from campaign group Clean Air London revealed air pollution results in 15-30% of all new cases of asthma in children, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and coronary heart disease in adults 65 years of age and older.

Annual average levels of nitrogen dioxide in central London are over twice the legal limit for Europe. Clean Air London says diesel vehicles like buses and lorries are the main culprits, and critics claim the Mayor and the government have not done enough to regulate their emissions.

By 2016, the Mayor has proposed 20% of all London buses to be hybrid which his office concludes emit four times less nitrogen dioxide compared to diesel buses and half the amount of CO2.

“The Mayor is doing a series of things to address that – new buses for London are the cleanest of its class,” said Pencharz, referring to the new ‘Boris Bus’, which costs £354,000 per vehicle. Tests do demonstrate the New Bus for London is the greenest diesel electric hybrid bus in the world.

“They’re a lot better than your average diesel. But there is no electric double decker bus – it doesn’t exist – that’s not to say it won’t exist in the future. We’re setting up a pathway to go in that direction.

“Single decker electrics – the capital cost is just too much for us to go there but we’re going to run some trials to see if they work.

“There are a lot of actions we’re doing to address air quality,” he added. “There’s something called the Mayor’s Air Quality Fund which is a £6 million fund from Transport for London.”

Pencharz agrees that taxis are the heaviest polluters, but the Mayor is yet to find a successful and cost-effective way to get the taxis off the road.

In 2012, the London Taxi Company, which makes most of the ubiquitous black cabs on the streets, announced plans to develop a hybrid taxi and, in the long term, one powered by hydrogen, although it appears progress is yet to be made.

“Everybody’s got to develop low emission vehicles for 2016 for London so we’re developing our next version,” a spokeswoman for the London Taxi Company told RTCC.

Olympics feedback

The Mayor’s office also appears keen to capitalise on some of the lower profile gains achieved at the London Games of 2012.

Branded the ‘Greenest games Ever‘, a series of climate and sustainability policies were implemented as a result, and the Mayor’s office is keen to not let this momentum slip.

“We do ourselves down, but we shouldn’t, we can pull it off and we did,” said Pencharz. “We shifted a lot of freight deliveries into the non-peak times to take traffic off the roads [during the Olympics]. It reduced congestion a lot. These are the [lessons] that we’re taking from the Olympics.”

Night deliveries can be unpopular with residents wanting a quiet sleep, but Pencharz suggests noise dampeners and a sensitive attitude from business can mitigate those concerns, indicating it is an option they are considering.

Climate change adaptation

Hanging over all these plans is the threat of climate change. This is a topic that Boris Johnson enjoys discrediting in his Telegraph column, but Pencharz’s attitude to the issue suggests that may be a smokescreen to appease his right-wing fans.

“We’ve seen in the last few years pretty spectacular rain storms. It may appear to have rained quite heavily but we’ve actually missed these cataclysmic inundations,” he said.

“If we got that in London – and one day we will because the odds are that it would happen – it will have some effect on the infrastructure and it’s quite important that we prepare ourselves to ensure that.”

The devastation was revealed in New York after Hurricane Sandy is testament to the damage extreme weather can have on the most advanced cities.

It resulted in clean-up costs of between $50-$70 billion. It flooded five boroughs in New York, submerging cars, tunnels and the subway system and plunging skyscrapers and neighbourhoods into darkness.

Londoners are concerned – in October 2012, a resident messaged the Mayor asking, “If London is to ever experience anything like the catastrophe of Hurricane Sandy, how well prepared are we?” It’s a good question – and it’s unclear if the Mayor or the government currently have an answer.

London’s vulnerability to flooding caused by a continuous rise in water level and the slow “tilting” of Britain (up in the north and west, and down in the south and east) caused by post-glacial rebound led to the construction of the Thames Barrier in 1983.

Further inland, Pencharz said the Mayor has initiated other flooding-related initiatives: “There’s a project here called Drain London which looks for where flooding might happen, where infrastructure is and to put in plans about how to make it more resilient.

“I think we’re very proud of being the first city to have a climate change adaptation policy to prepare ourselves for the changing climate and weather.”

The post Mayor of London could make fracking decision by 2014 appeared first on Climate Home News.

The UK’s credibility as a climate change leader is in danger of being tarnished by Conservative ‘political game playing’, shadow energy secretary Caroline Flint has warned.

Yesterday London Mayor Boris Johnson called on climate scientists to be thrown “in the deep end” of a swimming pool, while earlier in June Environment Secretary Owen Paterson questioned whether warming was influenced by manmade activity.

And critics claim Chancellor George Osborne’s preference for gas rather than renewables and opposition to a 2030 decarbonisation target may have jeopardised the country’s green economy.

Speaking on the sidelines of an IPPR Energy 2030 event in London, Flint told RTCC squabbles at the top of government were affecting the confidence of Britain’s low carbon energy sector, and could potentially impact on UN talks focused on a global climate deal in 2015.

“It is a distraction from the main debate, when we have Conservatives like Boris Johnson saying ‘ditch our climate change targets’ – or that’s what they seem to be saying – because it doesn’t take us forward,” she said.

Flint says the opportunities from a growing green economy need to be presented to UK voters ahead of the 2015 General Election

“What we’re clear about is that if you had a Labour government today you’d have a commitment to decarbonise our electricity by 2030, which would have allowed us to have some clarity about the way ahead.

“I think it is important for reasons of credibility on the international stage, for a developed country we not only talk the talk and walk the walk,” she added.

Despite Prime Minister David Cameron’s pledge to lead the ‘Greenest Government Ever’ in 2010, critics say the Conservative side of the UK’s coalition government has not shown enough commitment to this promise.

They cite the Treasury’s support for the gas industry at the expense of renewable energy, the blocking of climate change from the main G8 agenda and the sabotage of EU emission trading rescue efforts by a coalition of conservative MEPs.

The last action led to EU climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard calling on British Conservatives at the EU Parliament to “get their act together”.

Low carbon pioneer

The UK is seen as a climate policy leader around the world, meeting finance pledges to developing countries, calling for the EU to adopt a high carbon reduction target for 2030 and introducing the concept of climate security at the UN Security Council.

The 2008 Climate Change Act won cross-party support when it was adopted, and has been hailed internationally as a template for other countries to follow.

But Flint says domestic ambition has been lacking, citing a lacklustre take-up of the government’s flagship Green Deal ‘energy efficiency’ scheme, which offers loans to households keen to invest in insulation or new boilers.

Reports at the weekend suggested only 10 Green Deal financing packages have been recorded, although the Department for Energy and Climate Change says those figures are “not up to date”.

Energy Secretary Ed Davey says the scheme needs time to settle in, and argues it is “inspiring consumers to take action to keep their homes warm and bills down”, but Flint told RTCC she remains unconvinced.

“The Green Deal should be a good deal, and Labour initiated discussion of a pay as you use scheme, but the truth is people have to realise it is a good deal, and we have said all along if the interest rates are too high, if there are penalty clauses and people can’t pay back early, that’s a disincentive to people taking part, and I think the latest figures will sadly prove that to be the case,” she said.

“You have to have the framework to sell it well. In these difficult times when people are facing huge rises in their cost of living, to fork out for a deal that is asking 7, 8, 9% interest rates is asking a lot of money.

“That’s why we said we should have worked better to get those interest rates down and look at other countries where low interest rates have been set up, and you can sell the message stronger.”

The post Flint: Tory ‘game playing’ on climate affecting UK credibility appeared first on Climate Home News.

In an entertaining article that appears to ignore the huge levels of empirical evidence that suggest climate change is driven by carbon dioxide levels, the man who is many’s favourite to be the next Prime Minister of the UK says we should consider the possibility we could be on the verge of 30 years of colder weather.

“By my calculations, this is now the fifth year in a row that we have had an unusual amount of snow; and by unusual I mean snow of a kind that I don’t remember from my childhood: snow that comes one day, and then sticks around for a couple of days, followed by more,” he writes.

“I remember snow that used to come and settle for just long enough for a single decent snowball fight before turning to slush; I don’t remember winters like this.”

Of course, one could observe that it’s the winter, so one might expect snow. But for a detailed point-by-point scientific rebuttal of Johnson’s claims check this excellent article by the Carbon Brief, which cautions any future Prime Minister making policy based on ‘fringe theories’ or indeed their own calculations.

For the best of the tweets referring to Boris’s solar theory – see below.

Boris Johnson, Mayor of Piffle. carbonbrief.org/blog/2013/01/s…

— Robert Wilson (@CarbonCounter_) January 21, 2013

Snow in @mayoroflondon garden. So *global* warming may not be real bit.ly/11Levdo unacceptable #logic fail unless under 5 years old

— Damian Carrington (@dpcarrington) January 21, 2013

When the Mayor of London casually rejects evidence as basis of his politics, we’re in trouble. Hope scientists respond. tinyurl.com/afw3lzg

— ruth davis (@ruthdavis27) January 21, 2013

Boris can write crap abt climate change science and it’s OK. Crap on the vague ‘science’ of economics he’d b in trouble telegraph.co.uk/comment/column…

— Doug Parr (@doug_parr) January 21, 2013

MT @georgemonbiot: So @mayoroflondon relies on total nutjobs for advice abt an existential threat. #climatechange telegraph.co.uk/comment/column…

— Chris Hope (@cwhope) January 21, 2013

@mayoroflondon, when you pen #climate nonsense like this goo.gl/SS8aU you appear still to be ‘just a clod of cooled-down solar dust’

— Richard Black (@enviroblack) January 21, 2013

Boris Johnson, climate, snow and whiff-whaff – bit.ly/13Y2tw0

— Carbon Brief (@carbonbrief) January 21, 2013

Boris Johnson’s column should encourage other politicians to speak out against global warming views, says @piers_corbyn polho.me/VUYXAG

— politicshomeuk (@politicshomeuk) January 21, 2013

The post Boris Johnson casts doubt on climate change science appeared first on Climate Home News.

London's Mayor, Boris Johnson, has pledged to continue improving the city's green credentials beyond the Olympics.

As part of RTCC’s London Week, the leading candidates in the city’s Mayoral election have explained to us how they would cut emissions and make London a greener place to live.

Yesterday we heard from the Labour candidate Ken Livingstone. On Tuesday, the Green Party’s Jenny Jones set out her plans.

Today the Conservative candidate, and present Mayor of London, Boris Johnson defends his record and commits to continuing the work that needs to be done.

I am, and will continue to be, a green Mayor. I have delivered on all the green election pledges I set out.

I have made it a priority to protect our city’s green, open spaces and encourage more recycling across London boroughs. This is a greener and cleaner city for all Londoners to enjoy and will continue to be so under my mayoralty.

That is why as part of my nine point plan to secure a Greater London I am cutting waste at City Hall, freeing up £3.5 billion for services, which will help me, among other pledges, in restoring 300 acres of green space and planting 20,000 street trees.

Boris bikes

Since becoming Mayor the Cycle Hire scheme, launched in July 2010, was immediately embraced by Londoners and visitors alike.

We now have 6,000 bikes on the streets that are used for an average of 25,000 journeys a day. By spring 2012, 2,700 more docking points will be created across east London and another 1,500 docking points added in central London.

In 2009 I launched the Help a London Park scheme as part of my commitment to clean up and improve the capital’s rundown green spaces.

Having secured funding, the public voted for the 10 parks that most needed a £400k makeover. Improvements have included: new play equipment for children, improved access and security, extensive new landscaping and creation of wildlife habitat.

By the start of the London Olympics 2012, through the London’s Great Outdoors programme, I will have invested over £335 million in 80 public space projects.

And as well as the 10,000 new street trees already planted, I am also supporting the planting of an additional 100,000 trees every year through community action.

In addition I have:

• Created over 800 new green spaces for Londoners to grow their own food;

• Set up the London Waste and Recycling Board;

• Secured a reduction of 71,813 tonnes in CO2;

• Secured £5 million for the Clean Air Fund to improve air quality hotspots;

• Organised 631 Capital Clean-up events all over London, with 5,000 volunteers;

• Rolled out the RE:NEW programme within every London borough saving Londoners up to £180 per household through installation of energy and water efficiency measures in homes;

This year, London will be packed with visitors who will find a green, clean city brimming with confidence.

Whether they are new green spaces, clean-up programmes or infrastructure improvements, each project is transforming a new corner of London into a better place to use and enjoy.

I have strived to deliver on my green agenda, and it has been a huge success – but there is still much that can be done.

All this will ensure that London remains a truly green city.

VIDEO: Boris Johnson’s speech to the 2011 Conservative Party conference.

The post Boris Johnson: I am and will continue to be a Green Mayor appeared first on Climate Home News.

Ken Livingstone says he will take on the major energy providers and set up a London-wide energy co-op. (Source:Flickr/Roystonford)

As part of RTCC’s London Week, the leading candidates in the city’s Mayoral election have explained to us how they would cut emissions and make London a greener place to live.

Yesterday we heard from the Green Party’s Jenny Jones. On Thursday, the incumbent, Boris Johnson will explain why his green policies are working and what else he has planned for the city.

Today Labour’s Ken Livingstone explains how taking on the big six energy providers, cutting public transport fares and tackling energy efficiency can create a low-cost, low-carbon London.

While people are struggling with recession the Mayor’s priority has been to help reduce Londoners’ cost of living by raising their transport fares. That’s on top of his party nationally raising the cost of living through cuts and higher charges.

But my goal is also to help Londoners’ living standards to rise, while the amount of the earth’s resources we consume falls to sustainable levels.

Road transport is the fastest growing source of carbon emissions. To reverse this we have to encourage people out of their car and onto public transport, cycling or walking.

When I was Mayor previously London became the only major city in the world to achieve this. But Boris’ Johnson’s fares rises threaten future progress.

I will cut public transport fares by 7% this year and freeze them throughout 2013. Oyster single bus fares will be reduced from £1.35 to £1.20. From 2014 fares will not rise above inflation.

The costs will be met from the huge operating surplus Boris Johnson creates every year – the unplanned higher revenues caused by raising the fares year on year. Last year’s unplanned operating surplus was a staggering £700m.

Compared with Boris Johnson’s threat to keep raising fares by 2% above inflation each year, the average London public fare-payer will be £1,000 better off at the end of my four-year mayoral term.

Tackling energy efficiency

A third of all the energy consumed in London is used to provide gas and electricity to households.

Under Boris Johnson’s part-time leadership, London has lost out on £400m of national energy efficiency funding. I will call an immediate Energy Summit of the main energy suppliers to ensure that London get its fair share of the £1.3bn per year energy companies are required to spend on home insulation from 2013.

With this funding we could provide free loft and wall insulation to 400,000 homes, more than eight times the number Mayor Johnson has managed in four years with his RE:NEW scheme. On average, a household that installs proper insulation will save £150 off their heating and electricity bills.

London Energy Co-op

By harnessing the buying power of Transport for London (the biggest purchaser of electricity in London) and the rest of the Greater London Authority group of organisations, my new London Energy Co-operative will purchase energy on the wholesale markets, giving Londoners a cheaper alternative to rip-off energy suppliers. It will source as much of its energy as possible from low carbon sources, including investing in new renewable energy itself.

My commitment to cutting Londoners’ cost of living whilst making London a low-carbon city is embodied in these three policies – cut fares, increase insulation, and provide cheaper, lower-carbon home energy. We will announce others as the campaign progresses.

It may have been possible to be pleased when Boris Johnson renounced his earlier encouragement to George W. Bush to screw up the Kyoto climate treaty, and adopted my carbon targets. But he hasn’t delivered.

His big plan for a new hub airport on a wildlife site in the Thames Estuary sums up the Tory Mayor’s approach.

I will take personal charge of the drive to cut emissions because I genuinely believe tackling climate change is the duty of every elected person.

VIDEO: Ken Livingstone’s speech to the 2011 Labour Party Conference

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Ken Livingstone will offer Londoners the chance to buy their electricity from an energy co-operative if elected. (Source: WEF)

Londoners will be able to purchase low-cost electricity from an energy co-operative, according to Ken Livingstone.

Writing for RTCC, the former Mayor of London, who is standing as Labour’s candidate in the Mayoral election on May 3, made a series of pledges on energy and the environment.

“My new London Energy Co-operative will purchase energy on the wholesale markets, giving Londoners a cheaper alternative to rip-off energy suppliers,” Livingstone will say.

“It will source as much of its energy as possible from low carbon sources, including investing in new renewable energy itself.”

If elected, Livingstone says he would call an Energy Summit to secure the city’s share of a £1.3bn pot of funding for energy efficiency measures.

Livingstone also says he will look to encourage Londoners back onto public transport by trimming money of fare prices and indicated that he is opposed to a new airport in the Thames Estuary.

The full article will be published on Wednesday, March 7, as part of RTCC’s London Week.

All four leading candidates have been invited to submit their vision for a greener London. You can read Green Party nominee Jenny Jones’ article here.

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