BORIS Johnson has hit the “snooze button” on fighting climate change, the UK’s only Green MP has said, as she launched a hard-hitting attack on the Prime Minister.
Caroline Lucas was speaking at the launch of a Green Party hub in Glasgow as COP26 got under way in the city yesterday.
“The first rule of diplomacy is to walk the talk, but arriving at the G20 full of bluster about this being our last chance while at the same time pursuing policies at home that accelerate climate change is unlikely to persuade anyone,” she said.
“I am pleased it is now one minute to midnight, that’s quite right, but that is rather less compelling from a Prime Minister who is himself promoting a new oil field, the Cambo oil field off Shetland.
“It may well be one minute to midnight but it certainly feels like our Prime Minister has put the snooze button on when it comes to his own alarm clock.
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“Decision after decision are taking us closer to climate chaos. The £27 billion road building programme, the expansion of airports, and [tax reduction] on short haul air flights, stripping climate clauses out of trade deals and worst of all this new coal mine in Cumbria.”
Addressing the audience remotely, the MP for Brighton Pavilion said she would be arriving in Glasgow for COP26 later this week.
She argued the UK Government was under prepared for the conference and hit out over the Tories for “allowing a spat with France” over fishing to overshadow the start of the event.
“If you just make a comparison with what the French Government did in the run up to the Paris climate talks in 2015.
“The foreign minister of France visited China 11 times in three years, 900 meetings were held by diplomats to get everyone on the same page,” she said.
“Instead, here in the UK I asked some parliamentary questions about what our foreign minister was doing. Dominic Raab, when he was foreign secretary, his travel schedule reveals no trips to conduct meetings abroad on climate from July to December last year.”
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