UK failing as climate leader, says government’s top adviser

Exclusive: Lord Deben warned Britain’s own bid to tackle emissions was ‘off track’, while cuts to foreign aid risk undermining its leadership on top priority for Cop27

Britain’s year of global climate leadership has fallen short on multiple fronts, the government’s top adviser has warned, just as the UK’s Cop presidency comes to an end.

At the Cop26 summit in Glasgow last year, Boris Johnson urged countries to “pull out all the stops” to limit global heating, arguing that commitments made at the summit would be “100 per cent useless if promises are not followed up with action”.

But with only a week remaining until world leaders gather in Egypt for Cop27, Lord Deben, the chair of the independent Climate Change Committee, said Britain’s own bid to tackle emissions was “off track”, while cuts to foreign aid risked undermining its leadership on the top priority for this year’s summit.