Boris Johnson Launches UN Climate Change Conference To Be Held Later This Year
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – FEBRUARY 4: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (L) and British broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough speak with school children during the launch of the UK-hosted COP26 UN Climate Summit, which will take place this autumn in Glasgow, at the Science Museum on February 4, 2020 in London, England. Johnson will reiterate the government's commitment to net zero by 2050 target and call for international action to achieve global net zero emissions. The PM is also expected to announce plans to bring forward the current target date for ending new petrol and diesel vehicle sales in the UK from 2040 to 2035, including hybrid vehicles for the first time.
(Photo : Photo by Chris J Ratcliffe-WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister, has given a grave warning to world leaders on climate change, stating that Cop26 must be a "turning point for mankind" since global temperature rises are now unavoidable.

Only 40 days before the global meeting in Glasgow, Mr. Johnson used his speech to the United Nations General Assembly to rally support for his climate promises.

He encouraged nations to accept responsibility for the damage we are doing not only on our planet, but also on ourselves.

Mr. Johnson even joked about the Kermit the Frog, from the Muppets, was wrong when he sang, "It's not easy being green." He also went into detail on the Greek term deinos.

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During the three-day trip, the prime minister was encouraged by progress on climate, particularly President Joe Biden's pledge to increase climate spending to $11.2 billion - and China's resolve to stop supporting coal-fired power plants in other countries.

With only a few weeks until the summit, the UK is encouraging additional nations to contribute climate finance in order to reach the $100 billion objective established more than a decade ago.

Alok Sharma, the chair of the Cop26 conference, has also been in New York, conducting bilateral discussions with a number of nations, encouraging them to come up with both cash and more aggressive climate reduction objectives in the coming weeks.

President Xi Jinping has not indicated if he would attend the meeting in person.

The prime minister said on his way to the US that he thought the $100 billion objective was only a six in ten probability of being met, but those chances appear to have shrunk substantially after the US statement.

According to Johnson, the conclusion of Cop26 was important in keeping the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius within reach.

Johnson admitted at the outset of his tour to the United States that he had altered his view about the climate problem in recent years because "the facts change and people's minds change."

He informed reporters that as mayor of London, he had done extensive research into the subject.

"Global leaders were driven by a primitive fear that the present ambient warm weather is somehow caused by humanity," Johnson stated in 2015, "and that fear as far as I understand the science is equally without foundation."

He also suggested in a 2013 essay that the government consider preparing for a mini-ice age induced by solar activity, based on a debunked idea by climate skeptic Piers Corbyn.

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What is the COP26?

 

This is the 26th COP meeting, which will be co-hosted by the United Kingdom and Italy. Due to postponements caused by the COVID epidemic, the conference will be held in Glasgow from November 1 to 12, 2021, a year later than intended.

If COP26 is held as a fully physical event, it will be the largest summit the UK has ever held, with over 30,000 people anticipated to attend. Many people regard it as the most important climate event ever since 2015 Paris Agreement, in which all UNFCC members committed to keep global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels and to pursue measures to keep it below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The Paris Agreement requires countries to establish more aggressive targets for stopping their contribution to climate change, and COP26 is the first opportunity for them to do so.

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