Woes of power: Novice, UK PM Sunak takes U-turn, says will attend climate meet in Egypt
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: In politics, they say, those who can come to power; and those who can’t criticize and plot!
And political honeymoons are even shorter than marital ones.
Nobody knows this better than the greenhorn British PM Rishi Sunak, the first Indian-origin occupant of 10 Downing Street in London, who now wears the Crown of Thorns. He might realize soon that the crafty Tories led him up the garden path and actually scapegoated him (Sunak) and his shrewd frenemy former PM Boris Johnson, had purposely withdrawn his candidacy to clear his own way for the 2024 elections! By then, the anti-Sunak Tories believe Rishi would accumulate enough failures to bow out or get thrown out of the race.
Under forensic scanner from Day One, British PM Rishi Sunak, who took oath only on October 25, faced his first criticism by reappointing the controversial Suella Braverman as Home Secretary. His second came sooner than expected.
On Wednesday, he backtracked and announced he would join the next week’s UN climate conference in Egypt. This U-turn came after he provoked anger at home for refusing to attend the global event claiming that “pressing domestic commitments” would keep him away from the UN’s Climate Change Conference -27 (COP27) in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt.
This short-sightedness fuelled doubts about his interest in the planetary emergency, and critics said the ‘inexperienced leader’ was passing up an opportunity to rub shoulders with the likes of US President Joe Biden and European peers. On Wednesday, he realized his faux pas.
“There is no long-term prosperity without action on climate change. There is no energy without investing in renewables,” Sunak tweeted on Wednesday.
“That is why I will attend @COP27P next week: to deliver on Glasgow’s legacy of building a secure and sustainable future.”
The Scottish city of Glasgow was the venue for COP26 under the leadership of Liz Truss’s predecessor Boris Johnson, who made climate change and ambitions to make Britain “net zero” in emissions a signature policy.
The 45-day-wonder PM, Liz Truss, had cast serious doubt on that commitment with her avowed skepticism about net zero and blocked King Charles III from attending COP27.
The new monarch has been a lifelong campaigner for protecting the environment, and PM Sunak’s change of heart could revive debate about whether Britain should allow him to press the climate case in Egypt, the media reported on Wednesday.
King Charles III will hold a pre-COP reception at Buckingham Palace on Friday for business leaders, campaigners, and politicians, including US climate change envoy John Kerry.
Sunak’s U-turn came after he realized his faux pas: on Tuesday, Boris Johnson confirmed his attendance at Egypt’s invitation, potentially upstaging a novice Rishi. During his tenure as PM, Johnson championed renewable energy as the key to a greener UK economy and its quest for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
But on taking office from Truss, Sunak demoted COP26 President Alok Sharma from his Cabinet.
Reacting to Sunak’s U-turn, Sharma said he was “delighted” at the PM’s change of mind, but Ed Miliband of the opposition Labour party accused the new leader of being a “phony.”
“The Prime Minister has been shamed into going to COP27 by the torrent of disbelief that he would fail to turn up,” Miliband, Labour’s climate spokesperson, tweeted.
“He is going to avoid embarrassment, not to provide leadership.”
Caroline Lucas, the Green Party’s only MP in the UK parliament, welcomed Sunak’s announcement.
“But what an embarrassing misstep on the world stage,” she tweeted. “Let this be a lesson to him — climate leadership matters.
“Now he urgently needs to increase UK ambition on emission reduction targets & pay what we owe to global climate funds.”
Britain drew criticism this week after it emerged that it has failed to make some USD 300 million in promised payments to international climate finance bodies.
