Rishi Sunak Says He Will Attend COP27 Next Week
(Bloomberg) -- UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he'll attend the United Nations climate change talks in Egypt next week, reversing his previous decision not to attend.
“There is no long-term prosperity without action on climate change,” Sunak wrote in a Tweet on Wednesday that confirmed his attendance at the Nov. 6-18 summit, known as COP 27.
It's an about-turn from the premier's stance last week, when he said he needed to focus on the “depressing domestic challenges we have with the economy.” That provoked criticism from Alok Sharma, the minister in Sunak's own government who served as president of the previous COP26 summit in Glasgow, Scotland. He told the Sunday Times he was “disappointed” the premier wasn't going to Egypt, and argued it would promote engagement with other world leaders on climate issues.
Former premier Boris Johnson announced on Tuesday that he would attend the summit, ratcheting up the pressure on Sunak to change his mind.
Johnson made climate change a focal point of his tenure, but his replacement in Downing Street, Liz Truss, was less committed to the cause and became embroiled in a row with King Charles III after her administration advised the famously environmentalist monarch not to go to the summit. That advice to the King remains, Sunak's office has said.
Questions have been asked in the past about Sunak's commitment to combating global warming, not least when he cut taxes on fuel and flying just days before COP26. While it's not unusual for a head of government to miss the UN summit, there's additional impetus for the British premier to go because the UK is handing over the presidency of the talks to Egypt.
Read: Boris Johnson to Attend COP27 as UK Premier Sunak Mulls U-Turn
--With assistance from .
(Updates with details starting in first paragraph)
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2022 Bloomberg L.P.
-
Opinion | India at 38: From Innovation Overperformer to Innovation Powerhouse
India now has 453 VC-backed deep science startups, 18 of them late-stage, after 117 percent growth since 2020. Laurus Labs, at USD 9.3 billion, is the most valuable deep science company in any middle-income economy outside China.
-
Navigating Energy Crossroads: S Jaishankar's Call For Diversified Supply Chains At G20 Ministerial Meeting
As geopolitical fault lines continue to test maritime trade routes and commodity flows, Jaishankar's message remains pertinent: true economic resilience requires open markets, protected transit lines, and a genuine commitment to multilateral cooperation rather than coercion.
-
Indians Are Travelling, But Not Every Journey Is A Holiday | The Week In Whys
Pilgrims, patients and working women are the real travellers, and the system hasn't quite caught up with them.
-
Getting To Work Costs Women More | The Reason Why
It is not just about women paying more than men. It is about women paying much more in cities than in villages.
-
AI Bias In Investing Cannot Be Eliminated, But It Can Be Governed
Framing is a particularly important example as identical financial information presented in terms of gains rather than losses can lead an LLM to reach a different assessment.
-
Joining The Dots | Dark Skies, Steady Diya: Why Hope Holds This Diwali
With war, a weak rupee and foreign outflows weighing on sentiment, policymakers at the NDTV World Summit and market veterans at NDTV Profit Ignite: Diwali Edition offered the same advice: stay invested and filter out the noise.
-
The Curious Case of Equitas Small Finance Bank And A CEO Who Quit For Stock
PN Vasudevan believes persistent investor concerns over a perceived conflict of interest had become a governance overhang on Equitas Small Finance Bank's stock, even as the lender improved profitability and asset quality.
-
Talking Points This Week: AI Cash Burn, A Tiger Comeback And An India That Still Finds Its Own Path
India is not immune to higher oil or tighter global liquidity, yet its earnings base is broader, its domestic policy levers are still available.
-
Foreign Investors Own Half Of HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank. An LTCG Cut Could Matter Most Here
Foreign portfolio investors have US$115 billion parked in HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank. If the government cuts long-term capital gains tax, Jefferies says returning foreign money could land here first.
