COP26 president Alok Sharma said the UK will emerge from the coronavirus pandemic with a green recovery.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the June Momentum for Climate Change events, the UK secretary of state for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) said: “I sincerely believe it’s absolutely possible to have green growth in our economies across the world.”
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is hosting the June Momentum for Climate Change series of events, ahead of the COP26, which has been rescheduled to take place in November 2021 in Glasgow, Scotland.
UN deputy secretary general Amina Mohammed, UNFCCC executive secretary Patricia Espinosa and COP25 president minister Carolina Schmidt were also part of the panel for the online event.
Sharma said how governments rebuild their economies will have a “really profound impact” in terms of society’s future sustainability, resilience and wellbeing of individuals globally.
“COP26 can actually be that moment when the world unites behind a green and I think – really importantly – a fair recovery,” Sharma said.
Sharma said though COP26 had to be postponed until 2021, due to Covid-19, the UK is “absolutely not” postponing action on tackling climate change.
He said: “And I can tell you as the incoming presidency we’re absolutely committed to working with all parties and stakeholders to accelerate climate action this year and of course in 2021 leading up to November.
“And what we want ahead of COP26 is for all countries to be submitting these ambitious NDCs, committing to further cuts in carbon emissions by 2030.
“We want countries to set out those longer-term visions for emissions reductions, for ambitious long- term strategies, and actually to step up action to help the most vulnerable in society to adapt to the changing climate.”
Sharma continued to say that developed countries “absolutely have to meet and move beyond this totemic $100bn per year climate finance goal”.
He said the UK is focused on key areas in relation to COP26. These are the transition to green energy, the transition to clean transport, nature-based solutions for adaptation and resilience and finance.
“And we will seek to progress all the issues mandated for discussion within the UNFCCC process and let me give this commitment that I will be working very closely with our partners, Italy, with the Chilean COP25 Presidency and of course the future African Presidency of COP27, the UNFCCC and more broadly the UN family and indeed all parties and stakeholders to accelerate this action on climate change we all want to see.
“And I do want us to pursue a package that absolutely unleashes the full potential of the Paris Agreement and powers the UNFCCC process forward.
“We’re totally committed to delivering on a really ambitious, inclusive COP26 and we want to make sure that, actually, the voices who are most affected by climate change are also heard very, very loudly,” he added.