GLASGOW — U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson will drop into the COP26 climate conference on Wednesday in an attempt to raise the temperature on negotiators.
With the two-week talks due to close on Friday, Johnson will enter various negotiating rooms on Wednesday to take stock of the talks and send a message to ministers and negotiators to “dig deep,” according to a No. 10 official.
“The view is that some parts of the process need to be reminded of what’s at stake,” the official said.
Johnson will meet with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres on Wednesday as the pair look to shove the talks forward.
The U.K. presidency of the talks will bring forward its first version of the COP26 “cover decision” on Tuesday night. That document will shape the coming years of global climate discussions. Countries that are backing fast cuts to emissions hope it will include a call to align climate targets in order to hold warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
But efforts to reach a deal have been undermined by division, with large gaps between the positions taken by China and Western countries over the rules promoting transparency in the Paris Agreement. Saudi Arabia also is among the countries blocking efforts to land a deal on the cover decision, according to officials.
“Frankly on some vital issues, there is too far between us. So these next few days, we are absolutely going to need to see a change in gear,” COP26 President Alok Sharma told delegates on Tuesday.
“The public will be incensed,” he said, if they fail to act in Glasgow, he warned delegates.
“The honest truth is that we are not where we need to be, not even close,” said European Commission Executive Vice President and Green Deal chief Frans Timmermans.
The No. 10 official said Johnson’s visit was at the prime minister’s initiative, not at Sharma’s request.
POLITICO was tipped to Johnson’s reemergence when he and Guterres bumped Costa Rica and Denmark from a room at the conference center where they had planned to launch an alliance of countries that were planning to phase out oil and gas production.
A U.N. official could not confirm whether Johnson and Guterres would hold a public meeting on Wednesday. A U.K. official said Britain was not planning on joining the Danish and Costa Rican alliance.
“What we cannot have is a cliff-edge where oil and gas are abandoned overnight,” a spokesperson for the business department said.
Esther Webber contributed reporting.
Source: Politico
