Claire O’Neill has accused Boris Johnson of taking a “cavalier” and amateurish approach to hosting COP 26 and blocking his predecessor Gordon Brown from taking a role in helping with the global climate change summit.
In her highest profile public appearance since being dismissed from the role of COP president in January, the former energy minister gave evidence to the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee as part of its ongoing scrutiny of the UK’s hosting of the conference.
The prime minister had been “extraordinarily enthusiastic” about the UK hosting COP when the opportunity first presented itself during his spell as foreign secretary in Theresa May’s government, she said: “Both the previous and current PMs were very positive.”
However, there had also been a lack of understanding within government about the degree of work that hosting the global conference would involve: “There was a real misunderstanding of what was required to host the most important diplomatic event (in the UK) for the last 20 years and possibly the next 20 years. There was a cavalier attitude to what was required and that you could wing it with a few press releases and it would be fine.
“There was not the understanding that this was an Olympic-style event that we had to deliver and we were treating it like amateur hour.”
She said the Cabinet Office’s COP unit, which she headed, had been barred from hiring from outside the civil service and had been subject to “quite draconian” restrictions on headcount unlike the unit set up to handle a ‘no deal’ Brexit.
“I don’t think that the sense of gravity had petered through.
“What is lacking is a sense that this is job number one for the government,” she said, while acknowledging the pressures the government faced from dealing with Covid-19 and Brexit.
O’Neill also accused Johnson of “petty” objections to efforts to involve previous prime ministers and the Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon.
She said her proposal to approach Gordon Brown, who earned admiration on the world stage for his role in tackling the 2008 financial crisis, had been “rejected as preposterous”.
“The original work with both the Scottish first minister and previous PMs was really poor. There were some very petty conversations about why that was not a good thing and that was a failing.
“We have to get very serious about the whole government’s commitment to this. Using the first minister and former prime ministers and foreign secretaries as ambassadors could be enormously helpful and I would urge the government to put aside petty politics add bring in people who have a big role on the world stage.”
O’Neill, who has now become managing director for climate and energy at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, said the government should be pulling “every string” to secure the attendance of the heads of states of the largest countries.
Grilled on the reasons for her sacking in January, she said that the prime minister’s former chief adviser Dominic Cummings had questioned whether the role of COP president was even necessary.
The ex-minister also said that civil servants had resisted the idea that the UK should host COP.
“BEIS and Treasury civil servants didn’t want to host the COP and took a lot of persuasion,” she said, adding that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial (BEIS) was concerned that the UK would not be the right choice of COP president because it is a “powerful” northern hemisphere country
She described her successor as COP president as “highly dedicated and extremely gifted” but said it is “very difficult” for the BEIS leadership team to focus on COP given the pressures it faces responding to the impact of coronavirus on business.
O’Neill said the establishment of a COP unit in the Cabinet Office – the department that co-ordinates the rest of Whitehall – had proved “exceptionally difficult for the Whitehall system to manage” and had “descended into a series of turf wars.”
She also defended her proposal to live stream the COP proceedings on the grounds it is necessary to inject a sense of transparency and urgency into a process that has seen worldwide emissions double since it began in 1991.