The leaders of Germany, Japan, Australia, Canada and Indonesia, and the head of the European Commission, were among those who discussed the climate emergency amid growing alarms about extreme weather events. However, Mr Johnson sent Alok Sharma, head of last year’s Cop26 talks in Glasgow, to the online summit – as he chose to pay a second visit to war-torn Ukraine. The prime minister, who is under fire for his ethics adviser’s resignation, has been criticized for turning to his close ally with Volodymyr Zelensky in times of great political danger. The decision came as the author of the landmark climate law of 2008, which first pledged the United Kingdom to dramatic cuts in CO2 emissions, accused the prime minister of “adapting” to the climate crisis. Bryony Worthington condemned new North Sea oil and gas drilling and the government’s continued ban on onshore wind farms, demanded by Tory lawmakers. “What we need is a huge focus to save us energy, back in the good old days when we were lagging behind in our lofts and making our homes warmer,” he told the BBC. “We also need to significantly increase our investment in clean electricity, which can be done quickly. Both the fastest and the fastest will be the wind and the solar, the wind on land and the solar. “Drilling for more fossil fuels is also a wrong solution in that it will not be delivered on time, but it also contributes to climate change – which will exacerbate many of the problems we face.” The United Kingdom continues to hold the presidency of the police until the next meeting in Egypt in November, a fact that comes to a head after the failure to reach an agreement in Glasgow to avoid uncontrolled climate change. The White House said the Big Economy Forum was designed to promote “efforts to use all the levers to tackle the global climate crisis.” “It will also urgently address the growing costs around the world that have been exacerbated by Russia’s war in Ukraine and put the United States and its allies on a path to long-term energy and food security.” Mr Johnson’s omission comes after the US president refused to attend a climate meeting the prime minister hosted on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly last September. Jamie Peters, an activist at Friends of the Earth, said: “Whether Boris Johnson attended the Biden summit or not does not change his government’s recent climate reversal. “He said all the right things in the November climate talks, but last month his government overturned a local decision to drill for gas in Surrey and encourage new investment in oil and gas in the North Sea.” A spokesman for No. 10 insisted that Mr Johnson was “leading the way in climate change” and stressed his “full” commitment to achieving a net zero by 2050, as required by law.
