Boris Johnson says Cop26 climate conference ‘called time on coal’ – UK politics live

The task of Glasgow was to set out credible plans for delivering that and whilst the summit has made modest progress, we cannot kid ourselves. Plans to cut emissions still fall way short. The pledges made at Glasgow for 2030 – even if fully implemented – represent less than 25% of the ambition required.

Rather than the manageable 1.5 degrees, they put us on track for a devastating 2.4 degrees.

That’s why – according to the UN secretary ggeneral – the goal of 1.5 degrees is now left on “life support.”

So now we need to deliver intensive care. That starts by being honest about what has gone wrong. The summit was held back by guileless boosterism which only served to embolden the big emitters.

The prime minister praised inadequate net zero plans. Australia was called heroic, even though their plan was so slow that it was in line with 4 degrees of global warming.

By providing this cover we had little chance of exerting influence on other big emitters and we saw many more disappointing national plans.

The prime minister dressed up modest sectoral commitments as transformational. Earlier in Cop, the Government claimed that “190 countries and organisations” had agreed to end coal.

On closer inspection: only 46 of them were countries, of that only 23 were new signatories, of those 23, 10 do not even use coal!

And the 13 that remained did not include the biggest coal users – China, the US, India, and Australia.

With no public pressure, the big emitters were emboldened and they clubbed together to gut the main deal’s wording on coal. Only someone who thinks words are meaningless could now argue that an agreement to phase down coal is the same as an agreement to phase it out.

And there was the long-overdue $100 billion in climate finance. It has still not been delivered even though this money was promised to developing countries over a decade ago.

Failure to deliver has damaged trust and created a huge obstacle to building the coalition that can drive climate action between the most vulnerable developing countries and ambitious developed countries.