UK defends Boris Johnson’s plan to jet out of COP26 climate summit

The PM will fly back to London rather than take the train, Downing Street said hours after he chided world leaders for not doing more on climate change

Johnson’s spokesman cited time constraints, adding that the plane would use sustainable fuel and the emissions would be offset

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Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson gestures during the opening ceremony of the COP26 summit in Glasgow, on Monday. Photo: AP

Published: 3:03am, 2 Nov 2021Updated: 3:03am, 2 Nov 2021

Prime Minister Boris Johnson will fly back to London from Glasgow rather than taking the train, Downing Street said on Monday hours after he chided world leaders for not doing more on climate change.

Aviation – especially the private kind – is a bête noire of the environmental lobby as it emits vastly more carbon per passenger than other forms of transport.

Hundreds of campaigners attending the COP26 conference in Scotland’s biggest city have come up from London by train, although the main line to Glasgow was hit by lengthy storm-related delays Sunday.

Johnson flew in to COP26 late Sunday from Rome, where he was attending a weekend G20 summit, aboard a chartered Airbus plane painted in a patriotic UK livery.

He will use the same plane to return to London on Tuesday, his office said, after opening a two-day COP26 summit by warning that future generations “will not forgive us” if leaders fail to act.

“It’s important that the prime minister is able to move around the country and we face significant time constraints,” Johnson’s spokesman told reporters in Glasgow.