Former prime minister Boris Johnson has said that he will be attending the COP27 climate summit in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt.
Johnson confirmed that he had accepted an invitation from the event organisers to attend the summit, which begins on Sunday (November 6).
In an interview with Sky News, Johnson said he had a “particular interest” in attending and that the UK’s hosting of last year’s COP summit in Glasgow had been a “fantastic global success” which had done a “huge amount of good for the planet”.
He added that his presence at the conference in Egypt would be an opportunity for him to discuss “how I see things and how we see things in the UK” around climate change.
The UK’s hosting of the COP26 summit last November means that the country is the current holder of the COP presidency.
Alok Sharma, the former business secretary and COP26 president, has said that the prime minister ought to be in attendance at COP27 as part of the UK delegation. Other notable world leaders such as US president Joe Biden and French president Emmanuel Macron have confirmed that they will go, while Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon is also set to attend.
While Downing Street had indicated that incumbent prime minister Rishi Sunak wouldn’t be travelling owing to more pressing domestic matters, ensuing criticism and the news that Johnson is now attending is piling more pressure on him to be present at the key summit.
The BBC reports that it now appears “increasingly likely” that Sunak will attend, after his official spokesman said that “significant progress” had been made on the November 17 fiscal statement, which had been earmarked as one of the PM’s priorities at home.
Downing Street will issue an official statement if Sunak does make plans to travel.
Image by Ben Shread / Cabinet Office, OGL, on Wikimedia Commons
