Lords committee blasts govt’s ‘unclear’ climate policy in letter to COP26 president

The chair of the House of Lords environment and climate change committee has issued a public letter on behalf of the group to Alok Sharma, the government’s designated Cop26 president, blasting the preparations for the UN climate summit as “unclear”.

Committee chair Baroness Kate Parminter wrote: “The climate change emergency is one of the greatest challenges of our time and Cop26 is the biggest political event that Britain has ever hosted, so we would have expected clear leadership from the top and effective processes in place to coordinate action across departments.

“The absence of an effective climate change machinery across government has hindered preparation for Cop26 and limited wider progress.

“Not all departments are embedding climate change sufficiently into their policy-making and it is unclear how the centre of government is holding departments to account firmly.

“It’s hard to conclude that the delivery of Cop26 across government will be equal to the scale of the challenge.”