Climate change: Why I don't trust Boris Johnson to run vital Cop26 summit – Helen Martin

If anyone still believes climate change and planet destruction hasn’t started, they must have been asleep last week when the horrendous thunder was almost deafening.
A wildfire burns near the drought-stricken Shasta Lake in Lakehead, California, earlier this month amid a severe heatwave (Picture: Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images)A wildfire burns near the drought-stricken Shasta Lake in Lakehead, California, earlier this month amid a severe heatwave (Picture: Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images)
A wildfire burns near the drought-stricken Shasta Lake in Lakehead, California, earlier this month amid a severe heatwave (Picture: Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images)

Outrageous rain flooded streets, flowed into shops including even the new St James Quarter, and caused leaks in roofs and windows, all dismal events that had never happened as badly before, well not in our lifetimes.

The UN Climate Change Conference, Cop26, will be the most crucial world summit in Glasgow on November 1 to 12. There will be 30,000 delegates from around the world.

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US President Joe Biden already held a summit of 40 leaders on climate change in April. And, as experts said, North America went through “extraordinarily extreme temperatures” in June.

Boris Johnson will be hosting Cop26, but many doubt he will make any major contributions. The Guardian, citing senior international figures, reported that Boris Johnson “must urgently take control of the UK’s presidency of vital UN climate talks, amid a shower of green policy setbacks and growing concern over the lack of a coherent all-government climate strategy”.

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Many of us cannot imagine that happening. I hope I’m wrong, but I expect his priority, when it comes to government, the pandemic, and everything else including climate change, is just UK finance and the wealthy sector. As Ian Blackford stated in Westminster last week, Johnson is on his way to becoming a “tin-pot dictator”.

How many billions will he make the UK contribute towards saving the planet, cleaning up the world and the sea, massive emissions reductions, restoring natural land and growths, the atmosphere, glaciers etc? All that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

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