Sunak: We must ‘go faster’ on climate change after Putin’s Ukraine invasion
Rishi Sunak told world leaders today that Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was “a reason to go faster” on switching to renewable energy.
The Prime Minister told the Cop27 climate summit that green energy is a “fantastic source of new jobs and growth”, while vowing to stick to the UK’s climate promises from last years’ Cop26 in Glasgow.
The conference comes after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has led to a global energy shortage and caused prices to surge across much of the world.
This has led to calls from parts of the Tory party to abandon the UK’s net-zero target and to slow down the transition away from fossil fuels.
Sunak said Russia’s “abhorrent war in Ukraine and rising energy prices across the world are not a reason to go slow on climate change – they are a reason to go faster”.
He added: “By honouring the promises we made in Glasgow, and by directing public and private finance towards the protection of our planet, we can turn our struggle against climate change into a global mission for new jobs and clean growth.
“And we can bequeath our children a greener planet and a more prosperous future.”
Boris Johnson also spoke at the Sharm El-Sheikh conference yesterday, telling a New York Times event that “much damage has been done in just one year to our common purpose of tackling man-made climate change”.
The ex-PM said calls to push back the UK’s net-zero goal or to bring back fracking were “nonsense”.
“This is not the moment to go weak on net-zero, it’s the moment to double-down on green technology and the moment to double-down on wind power and clean, green solutions,” he said.
“This is not the moment to give in to Putin’s energy blackmail.”
Johnson led last year’s Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, which was earmarked as a key year for world leaders to renew climate pledges after the 2015 Cop21 Paris climate summit.
All 197 attending countries agreed to “phase down” the use of coal, after an original agreement to “phase out” the fossil fuel was vetoed by India and China.
This was considered a large disappointment at the time and led to Cop26 President Alok Sharma tearily apologising for not being able to broker a stronger agreement.