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The climate summit’s success depends on Boris Johnson doing the last thing he ever wanted to – forgetting about Brexit

The prime minister and his newly appointed COP president have to work in tandem with counterparts in Rome, Berlin and Paris in the next few months​, even in the face of difficult trade negotiations, writes Joss Garman

Saturday 15 February 2020 16:20 GMT
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Related video: Jeremy Corbyn attacks Boris Johnson over climate change summit
Related video: Jeremy Corbyn attacks Boris Johnson over climate change summit

Hosting a crunch climate summit just months after Brexit must have seemed like the ideal way for the prime minister to show that leaving the EU did not spell isolationism. Yet for COP26 to be successful, and for the Paris climate agreement not to unravel, the UK and EU are now going to need to put Brexit behind them and work closely together.

As host of November’s COP26 summit in Glasgow, it falls to Boris Johnson to take the lead. Right now, the 195 national climate strategies that comprise the 2015 Paris agreement would together not come close to preventing dangerous levels of warming. That’s why diplomats in Paris baked in to the agreement a commitment that leaders return with updated plans in five years’ time.

COP26 will be the moment, then, when we learn the exact size of the gap between what scientists tell us is required to prevent the most catastrophic impacts, and what governments are prepared to do – and, crucially, whether climate safety still remains within our grasp.

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