Boris Johnson admitted he ‘doesn’t really get’ climate emergency, reveals sacked adviser

Claire Perry O’Neill attacks ‘playground politics’ and warns crucial international summit is ‘hundreds of millions of pounds off track’

The climate change envoy sacked by Boris Johnson has revealed the prime minister admitted he “doesn’t really get” the emergency the world faces, in a scathing attack.

The prime minister has also explored moving the crucial COP26 Glasgow summit in November to England because of “ballooning costs” and rows with the Scottish government, Claire Perry O’Neill said.

The former Tory energy minister said she suggested giving Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, a key role, a proposal Mr Johnson rejected with “salty” language.

Lifting the lid on the apparent chaos, Ms Perry O’Neill said: “He has admitted to me he doesn’t really understand it [climate change] – he doesn’t really get it, I think is what he said.”

She warned the summit was being undermined by “playground politics” and was “hundreds of millions of pounds off track”, with just nine months to go.

And, following her sudden sacking as the summit’s president, she offered her “advice to anybody to whom Boris is making promises”.

“Get it in writing, get a lawyer to look at it – and make sure the money is in the bank,” Ms Perry O’Neill told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

The attack comes just hours before Mr Johnson attempts to silence the growing criticism with his first climate speech, in London, attended by the naturalist David Attenborough.

COP26 is widely seen as the last realistic chance for countries to pledge the deep cuts in emissions to hold global heating to no more than 2C – and prevent catastrophic climate change.

But Ms Perry O’Neill said: “We are playing at a kind of Oxford United level when we need to be Liverpool if we are actually going to do what the world needs us to do.

And she said: “One of the things you would have hoped to have organised by now is an absolutely firm location.”

The Holyrood government bore some responsibility and had “behaved disgracefully” by setting aside some needed buildings for other purposes, she alleged.

In a letter to Mr Johnson, obtained by The Financial Times, Ms Perry O’Neill told him: “You promised to ‘lead from the front’ and asked me what was needed: ‘money, people, just tell us!’ Sadly these promises are not close to being met.”

She added: “This isn’t a pretty place to be and we owe the world a lot better.”

In his speech, the prime minister will pledge an earlier ban on new petrol and diesel vehicles – in 2035 rather than 2040 – as a measure to help achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

However, the move will still fall short of the call by his independent climate advisers to act by 2030.

“A new 2035 target will still leave the UK in the slow lane of the electric-car revolution and in the meantime allow more greenhouse gases to spew into the atmosphere,” said Friends of the Earth’s head of policy Mike Childs.

“If the UK government wants to show real leadership ahead of this year’s climate summit, it must also urgently reverse its plans for more climate-wrecking roads and runways – and pull the plug on its support for new gas, coal and oil developments.”