Former prime minister, Boris Johnson, has made a return to the world stage this morning with a speech at the current COP27 climate summit at Sharm El-Sheikh.
Speaking at a ‘Climate Forward’ event held in conjunction with the New York Times, Mr Johnson justified his attendance at the conference saying, “I am the spirit of Glasgow, that is what I am doing here”.
Warning that Russia’s war in Ukraine had created a “corrosive cynicism” about reaching net zero, Mr Johnson suggested that the fight against climate change has been one of the most important collateral victims of the invasion.
During his address, Mr Johnson was in his full rhetorical pomp, clearly having used some of his recent holiday trips to hone some of the trademark verbal flamboyance deployed this morning.
He championed the achievements of the COP26 summit held in Glasgow last year, notably the agreement to remove 4.5 billion gigatonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere, which he said, “would otherwise be swaddling our planet in a great eiderdown of heat”.
During a subsequent question session, he said in the UK, “We should not be lurching back into an addiction or dependency on hydrocarbons”. Responding to the suggestion by critics that wind power was ‘medieval’, Johnson responded that, “burning oil is positively Paleolithic”.
Evoking Moses, the former British prime minister said, “This is not the moment to abandon the campaign for net zero”, suggesting that climate change would make the plagues of the Egyptian pharos, look trivial
Pointing to the need for greater private sector investment in green technology, Mr Johnson said, “We must keep up our campaign to end global dependence on hydrocarbons, and if we retain the spirit of creative and promethean optimism that we saw at Paris and Glasgow, then we can keep 1.5 alive.”
Describing himself now as a “foot soldier and spear carrier” of the Conservative Party, Mr Johnson told his audience that he was at COP in a “purely supportive role”. Mr Johnson appeared careful not to criticise Rishi Sunak, particularly around his hesitancy in attending the COP27 summit.
Mr Johnson did though appear to attack the approach of his brief successor, Liz Truss. Referring to the suggestion that the UK needed to open new coal fired power stations and in his words “frack the hell out of the British countryside”, Mr Johnson said, “I believe here at Sharm is a time when we really need to tackle this nonsense head on”.
Rishi Sunak, is set to speak at COP27 at 4pm UK time today. It has been trailed the Mr Sunak will set out a series of spending plans to fight climate change. These include £150 million for protecting rainforests and natural habitats, and £65 million for green technology innovation.
Mr Sunak who flew into Egypt last night, is also expected to meet French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss the issue of migrant crossing in the English channel. He is also scheduled to meet the new Italian PM, Giorgia Meloni, before flying back to the UK this evening.
