Rishi Sunak’s failure to attend Cop27 will come back to haunt him

The prime minister risks the UK’s remaining credibility over the environment, just 12 months after hosting the UN climate summit, writes Harry Cockburn

Rishi Sunak arrives at Cop 26 in Glasgow with his green budget box where he lead finance day (Getty)

A year after the UK hosted the United Nations’ Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, the new prime minister Rishi Sunak has said he will not be attending the follow-up conference in Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt.

After the enormous outpouring of concern in the build-up to Cop26 and the subsequent frustration at not securing commitments to deeper global emissions cuts, it is scarcely believable that the British prime minister will not attend.

In 2021, not only was then prime minister Boris Johnson in attendance but an opening video address was given by Queen Elizabeth II. There were also speeches made by (then) Prince Charles, who described the conference as a “last chance saloon” to save the environment.