Foreign secretary Dominic Raab has said he cannot “give a cast iron guarantee” that the Cop26 summit will take place in Glasgow later this year as planned due to the spiralling coronavirus crisis.
As uncertainty grows over whether the UK will be able to press ahead with hosting the UN climate change showcase event, which is due to take place in November, the foreign secretary admitted that it is “under review”.
At a hearing of the House of Commons foreign affairs select committee this morning (19 March), its chair Tom Tugendhat warned that it will be hard to carry out the international negotiations required to pave the way for a successful summit due to the restrictions on air travel currently in place across much of the planet.
“It is extremely unlikely we are going to secure the level of international co-operation required,” he said.
The COP is seen as the key spur for the government to make progress on a wide range of decarbonisation issues.
Responding to the committee’s concerns, Raab said: “I can’t give a cast iron guarantee. Things are moving so swiftly and it’s not until November so we will have to keep it under close review.
“We’re looking at all international events, particularly the ones we are hosting, and seeing what’s realistic. It also depends on the trajectory of the virus and what happens over the next few weeks.”
But the foreign secretary told the committee that the government has not abandoned hopes of holding a successful COP 26.
“It’s not got to the stage where we are giving up and we are hoping it will be delivered.”
Adding that everybody is waiting to see how long it will take for the current phase of the epidemic to burn out, he said: “It is possible that it’s going to be doable and we will give it a go, but you are quite right that we face a big challenge.”
But Raab said that the issue of climate change remains the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s “top international priority for the year”, adding that the coronavirus crisis should “reinforce the sense” that “you have to step up to the plate” on issues that require substantial multi-national co-operation.
And he said that while the government is constantly adjusting its resources and efforts in the face of coronavirus crisis, which he described as its “top over-riding priority”, tackling climate change is an “important, long term objective”.
He said it is important to both seek to uphold the Paris agreements and not allow the COP process to stall.
Sir Simon McDonald, the permanent secretary of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, told the committee that the department had appointed four dedicated COP ambassadors.
In addition, he said the FCO has 180 diplomats engaged on climate change issues as well as a clean energy attache network.
Sir David King, the government’s former chief scientific advisor, told Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday that a successful COP summit could be delivered virtually if the habit of requiring face to face meetings can be overcome.
But Nick Mabey, chief executive and co-founder of the environmental consultancy E3G, tweeted this morning that a decision on whether to shift the date of COP26 needs “serious analysis”.
“There is no bandwidth among leaders and no diplomatic momentum. The only metric should be what delivers greatest climate action over the next decade”, he said.