Thread by @BestForBritain

Britain is hosting #COP26 - and (when he's not napping, maskless, next to David Attenborough), our PM is talking the talk on climate commitments. But are we being more hypocritical than hospitable? 🧵👇 1/

In his opening speech Boris Johnson struck an unusually serious tone, telling world leaders ‘humanity has long since run down the clock on climate change.’ 2/
news.sky.com/story/cop26-sk…

He's right to say the world has a collective responsibility for climate change, but the polluting potency of developed nations like the UK means that we have a historical responsibility for climate change over the centuries... 3/

Yet despite the UK’s historical emissions record, we continue with high levels of per capita emissions today - which disproportionately disadvantages poorer countries. 4/
latimes.com/opinion/editor…

So our PM can lecture all he likes, but will he take responsibility for the UK’s disproportionate negative contribution to the climate crisis? We don’t think so, seeing as those contributions are still continuing today…5/

Let’s talk about Johnson’s personal pollution predilections...since becoming PM, he’s taken 20 flights by private jet. Seems a little excessive considering that pandemic travel restrictions have marked most of his time in office. 6/
mirror.co.uk/news/politics/…

It gets worse when you consider that one of his private jet flights was a taxpayer-funded campaigning trip to Hartlepool. 7/
businessinsider.com/boris-johnson-…

Johnsonian hypocrisy extends to coal usage. While the PM rightly criticised nations for rolling back pledges to stop building new coal power plants by 2030 at the G20 summit, the UK is still going ahead with building a new coal mine in Cumbria. 8/
bbc.co.uk/news/explainer…

The Cumbria coal mine shows Britain isn’t putting its money where its mouth is, continuing to damage our environment while lecturing others about doing the same. But surprise surprise, a certain person is happy to blame it all on planning authorities…9/

And worse still, the Government is adamant about approving the hugely polluting Cambo oil field - even as it talks the talk about ending oil exploration. 10/

When it comes to climate change, this Government prefers rhetoric to real action. That’s why it voted to allow the continued dumping of sewage into UK rivers, only u-turning when it realised it had stumbled into a PR disaster. 11/
independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi…

Of course, after last week’s Budget we should all be scared of what the Treasury thinks about climate change - slashing air passenger duty on domestic flights, to take one example.

And for the 70 minutes that Sunak spoke, he failed to use the word 'climate' once. 12/

Empty rhetoric on climate change is deeply damaging, not only for our international relations and place on the world stage, but for encouraging citizens to change their behaviours as we move to a green economy. 13/

https://twitter.com/UKTradeBusiness/status/1454440450337689603

You can't exercise a position of moral authority over other nations or over your people if you're not practising what you preach.

Climate delay is the new form of climate denialism. Our PM spent many years on that path. It's time to step off it for good. /ENDS