UK's Alok Sharma offers to step down as business minister to lead climate talks: Report

UK Business Minister Alok Sharma has offered to step down from his ministerial post to take a full-time role in preparing the nation’s chairmanship of the United Nations (UN) COP26 climate change summit, The Times reported on January 2. 

Sharma, who is also the president of the climate summit set to take place this year, has reportedly even told UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson that he would rather resign from his post as a business minister than give up his role as climate change envoy. This came after Downing Street rejected a report that Johnson wanted his predecessor David Cameron to take Sharma’s responsibility as president of next year’s UN COP26 climate change summit.

The UN COP26, the crucial summit will take place between November 1 and 12, 2021 in Glasgow, Britain to work to increase climate action, build resilience and lower emissions.  Johnson has even launched the 2020 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP26, and the 2020 Year of Climate Action at the Science Museum. During the address, UK PM had said that there is no greater responsibility than protecting the planet, and no mission that a Global Britain is prouder to serve.

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UK sets 'ambitious' emissions target

Further, ahead of the UN COP26 summit, Johnson announced a new target that he says would reduce the UK's greenhouse gas emissions “faster than any major economy" aiming to reduce nation's radiations by at least 68 per cent from 1990 levels by 2030 and to set the country on the path to net-zero by 2050. 

“Today, we are taking the lead with an ambitious new target to reduce our emissions by 2030, faster than any major economy," Johnson said.

“But this is a global effort, which is why the U.K. is urging world leaders as part of next week's Climate Ambition Summit to bring forward their own ambitious plans to cut emissions and set net zero targets," he added.

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