Johnson Says Glasgow Pact Is Still ‘Death Knell' For Coal

Boris Johnson has defended the pact agreed at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow, following a furious backlash from campaigners and vulnerable countries appalled by the “weak” and watered-down deal.

- Adam Forrest

Boris Johnson has defended the pact agreed at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow, following a furious backlash from campaigners and vulnerable countries appalled by the “weak” and watered-down deal. The prime minister dismissed criticism of the dramatic change, forced by India and China, which meant the commitment was to “phase down” rather than “phase out” coal power.

Mr Johnson insisted that the Glasgow Climate Pact “sounded the death knell for coal power” and claimed that it didn’t matter that the wording of the agreement had been changed at the last minute. “Whether the language is ‘phase down’ or ‘phase out’ doesn’t seem to me, as a speaker of English, to make that much of a difference – the direction of travel is pretty much the same,” he told a Downing Street press conference yesterday.

Mr Johnson welcomed the outcome of the Cop26 conference, describing the agreement as “game-changing” – but admitted that his own feelings at the end of the summit were “tinged with disappointment”. In a pointed message to China and India, he said: “We can lobby, we can cajole, we can encourage, but we cannot force sovereign nations to do what they do not wish to do. It’s ultimately their decision to make and they must stand by it.”