While British Prime Minister Boris Johnson touts the fact that the U.K. has left the straitjacket of the EU, it is going even further on climate change than the European Union. It was announced that the U.K. government will not back funding for fossil fuel projects overseas. Boris Johnson said in a statement today: “Climate change is one of the great global challenges of our age, and it is already costing lives and livelihoods the world over. Our actions as leaders must not be driven by timidity or caution but by ambition on a truly grand scale.”
The move is in time for the next round of UN climate talks, COP26, which will take place in Glasgow next November, co-hosted by Johnson, UN Secretary General António Guterres, and the French President Emmanuel Macron.
The U.K. is even more ambitious than the EU and has already set a fresh target of cutting emissions by 68% by 2030 while the EU has committed to cut carbon by 55% by 2030 compared with 1990 levels.
