Nigel Topping on Sky News 2 November 2022

#COP27 #RaceToZero #racetoresilience

Jayne Secker 0:00

Nigel Topping is the UK's High Level Climate Action Champion. I assume you're thrilled about this, Nigel?

Nigel Topping 0:05

Hi Jayne, I think it's I think it's great news. I mean, it's good for UK, soft power in the world. But I think it's also great for the actual international process. You know, the UK still holds the presidency of the conference. I'll hand it over to Egypt on the first day, so it's great, but the Prime Minister's decided to go.

Jayne Secker 0:23

What do you think is behind his change of heart?

Nigel Topping 0:26

Well, I think it's a big voter issue. And it's a big opportunity for the Prime Minister to meet many of the world leaders as you've been saying, and to project British leadership. You know, the UK has done a great job as presidency with Alex Sharma. And the UK, he's got a great record and actually putting in place the actions to decouple economic growth from from from carbon emissions. So I think, I think it is a little bit of an outbreak of common sense. Maybe the both in terms of future electoral messages to voters, and in terms of Britain standing in the world, it's the right thing to do.

Jayne Secker 1:02

Okay. So in terms of what can be achieved here, this is a bit different to Glasgow, isn't it? My understanding is that that you have sort of one big one, that they push through a whole lot of new stuff. And then the next one is more sort of tying up the loose ends getting through getting through on the paperwork. Why is that important to have the prime minister at that kind of event?

Nigel Topping 1:22

Well, actually, one thing, which is going to change the change that kind of five year cycle to be much more about every year, we've got to ratchet up ambition, Glasgow ejected a lot more urgency into the process. So I said, this is the sign off of the UK presidency. But also importantly, it's a time where we need to show a lot more solidarity with the vulnerable countries and communities in the world. And that's both in emerging markets in the global south. So this is an African Cup on African soil, but also the cost of living crisis and driven by very high fossil fuel energy prices. This is not just a paperwork, compass is very much about driving forward action on the ground and real economies, to bring down the cost of living by investing more in renewables.

Jayne Secker 2:05

And so will, what differentiates the Prime Minister's presence actually there on the ground will therefore make

Nigel Topping 2:12

I think he'll boy, he'll boy, the process, because the Egyptians as the incoming presidents will be delighted to have that kind of that that physical presence of the head of government and the head of the country with the presidency. And it will just emphasise that this is a leadership issue across the board. And that injection of, of ambition, and leadership at the beginning of a cop is really important for setting the mood music, if you like for the negotiations for the two weeks in the following.

Jayne Secker 2:43

And in terms of the kind of promises that we're seeing from COP, if we look back, you know, back in time to things like the Paris accord, what they'd set out in terms of global warming, were much more stringent than what it looks like we're really going to achieve. Do you feel hopeful that this next COP really well achieve something that makes a real difference? Or are you feeling a little despondent about what is really being achieved on a global scale?

Nigel Topping 3:08

Or did you always have to be a bit despairing, and I'm hopeful we're not making enough progress is very, very clear, in terms of mitigation, in terms of resilience in terms of finance, but we are seeing more progress. And it's speeding up. If you look at the transition to electric vehicles, for example, that's now just a race. You know, in India and China, the percentage of electric vehicles is doubling every year. So bits of the transition are starting to really take off the key is to make sure that it's every bit of the transition in every part of the world. And just just just one slight correction. There's more ambitious, more ambition in the Glasgow pact, than there was in parchment Paris said well below two degrees best efforts to keep 1.5 alive. in Glasgow, everybody agreed, we really need to aim for 1.5. So there's more ambition and more urgency in the whole process now.

Jayne Secker 3:55

But I guess we're the ambition and the urgency. It's whether or not it can be achieved. It's key, isn't it?

Nigel Topping 4:00

Yeah, absolutely. So there's a big focus on Egypt will be about turning those promises into action and really inviting everybody who turns up countries, CEOs bank cities to demonstrate the what they promised they are implementing. So that's what everyone's looking for.