Britain's Green Credentials?

 Major figures in the global climate talks, including veteran diplomats, scientists and respected campaigners, have expressed concern that the UK  is in danger of undermining the success of the talks.

Christiana Figueres, the former UN climate chief who led the 2015 Paris climate agreement, warned: 

“There have been recent decisions in the UK that are not aligning with the ambition of the net zero target. It is worrisome. There are raised eyebrows among world leaders watching the UK.”

Mary Robinson, chair of the Elders group of independent global leaders, and a former UN climate envoy, said poor countries were questioning the UK’s actions, particularly in cutting overseas aid:

 “People are shocked,” she said. “The poorest countries are the moral authority at the Cop, they drive the urgency, they drive the credibility. You need them fully behind the UK presidency to get the good ambition needed.”

Emmanuel Guérin, an executive director at the European Climate Foundation, who was one of the top French officials at the Paris talks, added:

“There is a lack of consistency between the UK’s domestic announcements and its international objective of success at the Cop.”

 The UK government's green rhetoric has been accompanied by a series of actions that have left many observers aghast, and that appear contrary to leading an international push to net zero. These include:

• The green light for a Cumbrian coalmine, which provoked a months-long row that ended with the promise of a public inquiry

• New licences for oil and gas exploration in the North Sea, while other countries have been asked to forego fossil fuel reserves to stay within global carbon budgets

• Cutting overseas aid from 0.7% to 0.5% of GDP

• The UK’s support for climate sceptic Mathias Cormann to become head of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

• Scrapping the UK’s only “green recovery” measure, the green homes grant

• Support for airport expansion

• Slashing incentives for electric vehicles

• Covid-19 stimulus money given to high-emitting companies without green strings attached

• Missing tree planting targets

Jennifer Morgan, the chief of Greenpeace International, said the measures showed the government had little regard for how the UK’s actions would be seen at a crucial point in climate negotiations:

 “These decisions are going in the wrong direction, and it is disturbing,” she said. “They are not prioritising the climate – domestically or internationally. Most developing countries are now very nervous. The clock is ticking. The prime minister needs to make it clear this is the top priority. If not, then the Cop will be a failure.”

Jeffrey Sachs, professor at Columbia University and a leading expert on sustainable development said:

 “The world is looking to the UK this year for leadership at Cop26. Everything that they do in the right direction helps Cop26; everything that they do in the wrong direction hurts Cop26.”

Rachel Kyte, formerly a top World Bank official at the Paris climate talks who is now the dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University in Massachusetts, said: 

“What the UK is doing is like dad dancing – it is not that they’re evil, just that they are very uncoordinated. They have not yet perfected a whole government approach to getting to net zero.”

developing countries at thse Cop26 talks and senior officials are concerned at the signals the foreign aid cut sends about rich-country obligations and solidarity with the developing world.

Achim Steiner, administrator of the UN Development Programme, put it in diplomatic terms: 

“It sends a very mixed signal, and makes developing countries very concerned. It certainly does not enhance the confidence with which developing countries come to the table.”

Kyte was more forthright:

 “This decision is the single worst self-inflicted injury in this kind of diplomacy that most of us have seen for a very long time.”

Some fear other rich countries could use the UK’s stance as an excuse to cut their own aid budgets. “You can’t say this doesn’t have an impact – it does,” said Guérin. “People are looking at this.”

Boris Johnson told to get grip of UK climate strategy before Cop26 | Environment | The Guardian

SOYMB asks, should we be at all surprised?