BORIS Johnson today admitted he was “very worried” about his crunch climate change summit – and it was “touch and go” whether a global green deal could be reached.
With just six days to go before world leaders gather in Glasgow for the landmark COP26 conference, he poured cold water over expectations that they will come together and get a major landmark agreement.
The PM hosted a kiddie press conference this morning with children ahead of bringing everyone together next week to try and meet tough climate goals.
But he warned: “It’s going to be very, very tough.”
“I’m very worried, because it might go wrong and we might not get the agreements that we need.
“It’s touch and go… it’s very, very far from clear that we will get the progress that we need.”
The PM’s pessimism against what is being billed as the most important climate change conference in a generation comes just days after Trending In The News revealed climate chief Alok Sharma was alleged to be fuming at him for setting expectations too high for the Glasgow summit.
Boris will rally world leaders to cut out coal, petrol and diesel cars, plant more trees and sign up to ambitious new eco goals to slash their own dirty carbon emissions.
He said today “we need as many people as possible” to play their part and insisted “peer pressure” at the UN summit may force action.
The PM also used the press conference to say:
- Recycling plastic “doesn’t work” and Brits need to stop using it altogether.
- He joked that people worried about the planet should readdress the balance with nature by feeding people to animals instead.
- He backed lab-grown meat, saying it would taste exactly the same as a burger in the future and it was the way forward
- He slapped down new coal mines saying he did not want to support them – as local chiefs take a review of a new one in Cumbria
In an action-packed event at No9 Downing Street, the PM said earlier that contrary to popular belief, “recycling isn’t the answer” to taking care of the planet.
Instead he lashed out at Coca Cola and other big plastic polluters for failing to change their ways to help save the world.
He said: “Coca-Cola, for instance, and others, which are responsible for producing huge quantities of plastic, and we’ve got to move away from that and we’ve got to find other ways of packaging and selling our stuff.”
Mr Johnson said: “Recycling isn’t the answer. Recycling… it doesn’t begin to address the problem.”
He said “the only answer” was “we’ve all got to cut down on our use of plastic”.
Appearing alongside Mr Johnson, WWF UK’s chief executive Tanya Steele said: “We have to reduce, we have to reuse – I do think we need to do a little bit of recycling, PM, and have some system to do so.”
And he joked about feeding people to animals: “I think we need to bring nature back… Our planet, 97% of the mass of mammals on this planet is humans and our animals, our domestic animals.
“Just 3% is left for the wild.”
The Prime Minister said it was “so sad” and added: “We could feed some of the human beings to the animals.”
But Ms Steele replied: “We could have a vote later and ask if there’s any candidates.”
The PM is under pressure to prevent a new coal mine opening in Cumbria – which ministers have ordered a review into.
But a decision is not due for months – way after the climate change summit where Boris will tell the world they must stop using coal for electricity.
Asked if he will continue to support new coal mines being created in the UK, the Prime Minister said: “We don’t want to support new coal mines but what we want to do is to continue our progress to a zero-carbon future.”
Today Trending In The News launches a Green Team Week ahead of the major climate summit next week.
Passionate environmentalist Prince Charles, 72, shares how we can each do our bit to help the planet with an article today.
