Image source, Reuters

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, has tweeted , externalabout her earlier meeting with UK PM Rishi Sunak on the margins of COP27.

"We face many common challenges, from tackling climate change and the energy transition to Russia’s war against Ukraine. I look forward to a constructive [EU-UK] co-operation based on our agreements."

Both the UK and EU have faced harsh energy price rises since the war on Ukraine began.

It is Sunak's first appearance on the international stage since becoming PM a fortnight ago.

As the nations of the world meet at COP27 in Egypt, they are under pressure to improve on landmark commitments they made seven years ago in Paris.

The Paris Agreement united almost all the world's nations - for the first time - in a single treaty on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. It was a big moment. Nearly 200 countries agreed at the COP21 summit in 2015 to:

• Keep temperatures "well below" 2C above pre-industrial times and to "pursue efforts" to limit temperature rise to 1.5C
• Limit greenhouse gas emissions from human activity to the same levels that trees, soil and oceans can absorb naturally - known as net zero - between 2050 and 2100
• Each country to set its own emission-reducing targets
• Rich countries to help poorer nations by providing funding to help them adapt to climate change and switch to renewable energy

Image source, .

Some of the key discussions in Sharm el-Sheikh will be about whether and how countries are building on what they promised in Paris. All the COP meetings since have been about implementing what was agreed in the French capital. Even after some countries set themselves more ambitious targets in Glasgow last year, the pledges are still not enough to limit warming to 1.5C.

And it's all part of a UN process that started in the 1990s."COP" stands for "Conference of the parties", and this summit - COP27 - is the 27th meeting of the parties.

Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will today call on world leaders to deliver on the commitments they made in the Glasgow Climate Pact at COP26.

Speaking to the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme, the first minister said there was more of a sense of "nervousness and scepticism" in Egypt than there was at COP26.

She said: "I think Glasgow was a success - we didn't get everything that had been hoped for, but I think the feeling coming out of COP26 was that it was a good foundation to build on. But it will only count if it is implemented.

From Sharm el-Sheikh to Surrey, the M25 has been closed between junctions six and seven after a protester climbed onto an overhead gantry, highlighting the ongoing fight against climate change at home.

Surrey Police said the decision was made to close the road "for the safety of everyone" while officers attempt to remove the activist.

It comes after police made a series of arrests ahead of planned action by the Just Stop Oil climate protest group.

The force said there were reports of other protesters between junctions eight and nine of the motorway, as well as 12 and 13 southbound and one between junctions 13 and 14.

A protester also targeted junction 30 of the major motorway circling London, with Essex Police urging the public "not to intervene".

There tends to be a spike in climate protest action around the COP conferences.

Earlier, Boris Johnson said critics "underestimated" the ability of the human race to achieve climate goals set during COP26.

He recounted how a Telegraph colleague, who happened to be an aide of his, scoffed at the idea of turning to wind power, on the grounds that it was "medieval technology".

He remembers replying that burning oil was "positively Paleolithic" in comparison.

He went on to say that moving towards clean energy was something that could be done.

"The critics of this agenda massively underestimate the ability to harness the natural world," he said, referencing examples of innovative carbon solutions in both China and the US.

As our climate editor Justin Rowlatt noted earlier, Johnson himself once criticised wind power as not capable of “pulling the skin off a rice pudding”.

Johnson is asked whether he was worried when the current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he wouldn't be attending the COP27 summit due to preparations for the UK government's Budget on 17 November.

Johnson replies: "The prime minister's here. I'm glad he's here. He's made an outstanding speech the other day. He's on absolutely the right lines."

He adds he is attending the conference as a "foot soldier and spear carrier of the Conservative Party, purely in a supportive role to remind the world of what we did in Glasgow".

He says he wants "to make the key point" that there is a "risk" that some people will "go weak and wobbly on net zero".

Boris Johnson tells the audience that he's very worried about the UK's target of reaching "net zero" carbon emissions by 2050.

"The reason I'm here is because I am worried that the discussion about Ukraine, about what's happening there, is having all sorts of bad effects," he says. "It's making people anxious about net zero, it's making people anxious about whether we can really do it.

"The point I'm trying to get across to you today is that this is not the moment to go weak on net zero, this is the moment to double down on green technology and to double down on wind power and clean green solutions.

"This is not the moment to give in to Putin's energy blackmail."

Some Conservative MPs have called for a re-think of how the UK gets to net zero, with candidates in the summer's Tory leadership contest voicing concerns about the economic cost.

Johnson says recognises there are plenty of people who disagree with him on this point but that the Ukraine war and its consequences is absolutely a struggle between right and wrong.

Many countries globally have agreed to meet the net zero target, which scientists say is necessary to slow global warming and reduce the risk of severe consequences from climate change.

"At what point does it just become imperative for Britain and the Unites States and others to simply just do more?" New York Times journalist Max Bearak asks now.

Johnson replies budgetary pressures are "massive right now".

"But that doesn't mean that we in the UK are not doing a huge amount. We continue to give huge sums of assistance.

"I think it's important though to recognise there is a gap. At COP26, we said the developed world would come up with $100bn a year, we are way short of that at the moment.

"The taxpayer in the developed world is going to have to do some things, but it can't do everything, certainly not right now.

"The best way forward are programmes like the Eskom deal with South Africa... and to use government activity and intervention to trigger the private sector to come in. That is the real solution I think.

"The answer to this problem is going to be found in a partnership between an activist international community, but the private sector has got to do it."

More now from Boris Johnson, who says jailed British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, who is on a hunger and water strike, is "a very sad case".

In his interview with the New York Times, Johnson says it is his "strong belief" he should be released and have consular access.

"That is a point that I've made several times with the Egyptian government. And I raised it, most recently, personally with [Egyptian] President Sisi just a few weeks ago, when I was still prime minister and we had we had a long conversation about it," Johnson says.

President Sisi seemed "open to discussion" and has been "able to sort things out in the past", he says.

Johnson adds he hopes Abdel Fattah can be "released as fast as possible".

Image source, New York Times

In questions after his speech, Johnson says it's "incredibly important" that the US stays with its programme on climate change, "leading the world in helping countries to adopt clean technology".

"I think [US President] Joe Biden totally gets it," he says, adding that he won't be drawn on any questions about former President Donald Trump.

Justin Rowlatt
Climate editor, reporting from COP27

This was a very Johnsonian example of self-promotion.

“I am the spirit of Glasgow’s COP26,” he told the New York Times audience.

The man who once criticised wind power as not capable of “pulling the skin off a rice pudding”, is now ridiculing a Daily Telegraph journalist who questioned wind power’s capabilities.

He boasted about the great achievements he claimed for the COP conference he oversaw as British prime minister.

There certainly were some ambitious pledges on finance, forests, cars, coal, methane and more made there.

But this conference is about delivering on those promises and that is a much tougher agenda. Tougher, because it means getting countries to actually cough up cash.

Johnson urged his audience to call forth the “can-do Promethean spirit that will get us out of this mess”.

Put the electric throttle to the floor was his message.

But was this really directed at the audience in the hall or at the UK’s current prime minister, Rishi Sunak, attending the leaders’ reception here in Egypt, a few miles away?

Now, Johnson recalls how temperatures in London reached an "almost unbearable" 40C, something he goes on to joke "perhaps even contributing, who knows, to unexpected political turmoil that we saw in Westminster at the time".

He finishes his speech with: "Thank you all and have a great COP."

Now, he will sit with the New York Times' climate journalist Max Bearak for a 30-minute Q&A session.

"This is the moment to put the electric throttle to the floor," Johnson continues.

Johnson is pointing out the efforts of China, Egypt and the US to name a few, saying that now is the time to make progress.

Focusing on the UK now, he continues: "In the UK of course, we are not only helping people with the cost of energy, we are making sure we can never again be so vulnerable to sudden gyrations in the price of gas."

Steps the government are making, he says, include putting in 50 gigawatts of wind power by 2030 and building a new nuclear reactor every year as opposed to every 10 years.

Johnson cites the war on Ukraine as a big factor in slowing down progress against climate change.

"I think Glasgow was a high point for the struggle against climate change," he says.

"Then, barely three months later, we had the moral and human catastrophe of Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

"There will be and are many victims of that grotesque miscalculation but I believe the fight against climate change has been one of the most important collateral victims."

Image source, New York Times

"I'm the spirit of Glasgow," says Johnson as he begins his speech.

Continuing, he recalls how much damage has been done since the conference last year, hosted in Scotland.

He says: "We went further at Glasgow. Dozens of countries agreed to abandon the use of vehicles powered by internal combustion engines.

"We also came together to protect the forests that are so crucial for the oxygenation of our planet.

"I know the big issue here is about cash, it's always about cash. We didn't find enough cash to do everything that we need to do."

Justin Rowlatt
Climate editor, reporting from COP27

Britain is overrepresented on the prime ministerial front here at COP27.

Rishi Sunak arrived at the conference centre here in the Egyptian desert in the last hour. He is joining 120 other world leaders.

But Boris Johnson, the last prime minister but one, is also here - and he's just started speaking at a New York Times event., external

Sunak will be urging the summit to embark on a “global mission for clean growth”.

Johnson has a similar message but with a typically Johnsonian spin. He’ll be saying we need to retain the spirit of “Promethean optimism” we saw at Paris and the COP26 conference he oversaw in Glasgow last year.

But the real question is why he’s made this journey into the Egyptian desert.

Chris Mason
Political editor, reporting from COP27

I am doing what reporters do best. Or least spend a lot of our time doing. Loitering, in the hope of grabbing a word.

Grabbing a word, that is, with the prime minister before last, Boris Johnson - who is about to speak at an event hosted by the New York Times.

He is here at the invitation of the Egyptian government, keen to preserve his association with climate diplomacy and politics after the COP summit in Glasgow last year when he was prime minister.

So far, pouring through the entrance, delegations from around the world.

The former US Vice President Al Gore has just wandered past.

If I spot Johnson I have two questions: what are you doing here? And are you backseat driving?

Former UK PM Boris Johnson is about to speak at a New York Times event as part of the COP27 conference.

Follow along for updates.

Matt McGrath
Environment Correspondent, reporting from Sharm el-Sheikh

Image source, Reuters

All along the road to the COP27 conference centre here in Sharm el-Sheikh you’ll see men in dark suits standing alone in dusty fields and empty streets.

These appear to be security personnel, drafted in to ensure that nothing disturbs this important event.

That’s doubly true today when world leaders will be at the meeting, delivering their speeches and attending roundtable discussions.

Keeping a lid on any demonstrations seems a key aim for the Egyptian authorities, although they say they are happy to facilitate protests in a designated space, at a designated time.

The sense of being watched doesn’t just involve the men in black.

A COP27 app, provided by the Egyptians, have been reported to the BBC as capable of spying on a user’s phone.

Once downloaded it has access to photos, emails and a user’s location. Attendees are being discouraged from downloading it.

Cabs across Sharm are expected by the authorities to have video cameras installed.

All this adds to the eerie, slightly paranoid atmosphere surrounding this COP.

Where Sunak stands on climate issuespublished at 08:26 Greenwich Mean Time 7 November 2022

08:26 GMT 7 November 2022

Laura Kuenssberg
Presenter, Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg

Spin back 12 months to the COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow and you couldn't move without tripping over a world leader, a FTSE boss, even the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The conference was an enormous affair where hours and hours of negotiations took place about how countries large and small, north and south, could work together to try to slow down climate change and manage its impact.

There was another vital ingredient last year though: political energy.

There was no doubt that the then-prime minister Boris Johnson took the issue seriously. There was a visible desire in the government to act to manage climate change and for the UK to take, and be seen to take, a prominent role.

But as leaders assemble for COP27, is the UK's commitment still as strong? The simple optics of the last few weeks suggest not.

Read more here.