UK PM Boris mentions James Bond in COP26 Climate change warning; 'Doomsday device is real'

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday, 1 November opened the global climate summit, COP26 and said that the world is strapped to a “doomsday device". To reiterate his call for urgent climate action, Johnson told the audience of at least 130 world leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Glasgow, that Earth’s ever-warming position is similar to the fictional secret agent James Bond, strapped to a bomb that will destroy the planet and trying to work how to defuse it. 

UK PM told the leaders that “We are in roughly the same position” but noted that now the “ticking doomsday device” is real and not fiction. In his opening address to United Nations Climate Change Conference or COP26, Johnson said that the threat is climate change triggered by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas and he indicated that it all started in Glasgow with James Watt’s steam engine powered by coal.

UK PM Johnson said, “Welcome to COP, welcome to Glasgow and to Scotland whose most globally famous fictional son is almost certainly a man called James Bond....who generally comes to the climax of his highly lucrative films strapped to a doomsday device desperately trying to work out which coloured wire to pull to turn it off...while a red digital clock ticks down remorselessly to a detonation that will end human life as we know it.”

He added, “And we are in roughly the same position, my fellow global leaders, as James Bond today...except that the tragedy is that this is not a movie, and the doomsday device is real.”

Johnson kickstarted COP26

Johnson’s remarks came while kickstarting the world leaders’ summit portion of COP26 that is aimed at getting agreement to curb the carbon emissions rapidly and keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) below pre-industrial levels. As per AP, the world has already warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit). The present projects based on planned emissions reductions over the next decade are for it to hit 2.7C (4.9F) by the year 2100.

UK PM told the summit that humanity had run down the clock especially when it comes to climate change and noted that the time for action is now. He also pointed out that the average age of more than 100 world leaders gathered in Glasgow was over 60 and most generations who are going to bear the impact of climate action are not even born yet. Notably, Johnson struck a gloomy note on the eve of the conference after leaders from Group of 20 (G20) major economies made reportedly modest commitments at their summit in Rome earlier. 

(IMAGE: AP)