UK PM Sunak reverses decision to skip COP27 climate summit

Al Jazeera:

Britain’s new prime minister, Rishi Sunak, says he will fly to Egypt after all to join UN climate talks after provoking a tempest two days into his tenure when he refused to attend the global conference.

Sunak had argued that “pressing domestic commitments” would keep him away from COP27 talks in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh after he inherited an economic crisis from predecessor Liz Truss.

But that fuelled doubts about Sunak’s interest in the planetary emergency, and critics said the inexperienced leader was passing up an opportunity to rub shoulders with the likes of US President Joe Biden and his European peers.

“There is no long-term prosperity without action on climate change,” Sunak wrote on Twitter on Wednesday. “There is no energy security without investing in renewables.”

He said he would attend the summit to “deliver on Glasgow’s legacy of building a secure and sustainable future” – a reference to an agreement reached at last year’s COP26 event, which Britain hosted. The deal was meant to keep alive the world’s chances of averting the worst impacts of global warming.

Truss’s predecessor Boris Johnson had made fighting climate change and working towards “net zero” emissions a signature policy.

Truss cast serious doubt on that commitment with her scepticism about net zero and blocked King Charles III from attending COP27.

The new monarch is a lifelong campaigner for environmental issues, and Sunak’s change of heart could revive debate about whether Britain should allow him to press the climate case in Egypt.