Boris Johnson attends COP27, blames Russia-Ukraine war for hindering climate progress

Former UK prime minister Boris Johnson is at the COP27 summit and his presence reportedly made the current UK PM change his mind about attending the event. Originally, Rishi Sunak had decided to give COP27 a miss, to focus on "depressing" domestic economic issues instead. However, once 10 Downing Street learnt that Boris Johnson is attending the summit, Rishi Sunak decided to attend the summit himself.

Addressing a NYTimes event at the COP27 summit, Boris Johnson began his speech by reminding the audience of the progress made in the Glasgow COP26 summit, which the UK hosted under Boris Johnson's prime ministership. "I'm the spirit of Glasgow. We went further at Glasgow. Dozens of countries agreed to abandon the use of vehicles powered by internal combustion engines. We also came together to protect the forests that are so crucial for the oxygenation of our planet," said Johnson. In his speech, Boris pointed out that the primary challenge is money, flagging that some things could not be achieved due to lack of financial resources. "I know the big issue here is about cash, it's always about cash. We didn't find enough cash to do everything that we needed to do," he said. 

Johnson blames Russia-Ukraine war for hindering progress

Boris Johnson blamed the Russia-Ukraine war for hindering the progress in the fight against climate change. "I think Glasgow was a high point for the struggle against climate change. Then, barely three months later, we had the moral and human catastrophe of Putin's invasion of Ukraine. There will be and are many victims of that grotesque miscalculation but I believe the fight against climate change has been one of the most important collateral victims," said Johnson. He flagged the steps the UK is taking to make progress, such as building a new nuclear reactor every year instead of a new nuclear reactor once every 10 year. 

Boris speaks about heatwave in UK

In his speech, Boris Johnson spoke about the heatwave the UK witnessed this summer, to give an example of how the climate is changing. In general, summers are pretty cool in the UK, due to which most houses don't even have fans or air conditioners but this year the temperature touched 40 degree centigrade. Johnson said that the temperature was "almost unbearable". The former UK PM cracked a joke on the chaos within the Tory party by saying that the heatwave perhaps contributed to the political turmoil in the UK. 

Boris is 'glad' that PM Rishi Sunak decided to attend the summit

When asked if he was worried that Rishi Sunak might not visit the summit, Boris replied by saying, "The prime minister's here. I'm glad he's here. He made an outstanding speech the other day. He's on absolutely the right lines." He went on to add that he is a, "foot soldier and spear carrier of the Conservative Party, purely in a supportive role to remind the world of what we did in Glasgow". Johnson also spoke about how the private sector has a huge role in the fight against climate change. He also added that it is important for the US to stick with the climate programme. He claimed that burning oil for energy was "positively Paleolithic". An ardent student of the classics, Boris mentioned in his speech that it is important to maintain a spirit of “Promethean optimism”.