Boris Johnson to hold press conference at 4.30pm today in dash to climate summit
UK government announced a target for all new UK HGVs to be zero-emissions by 2040 - 10 years after the date for cars and vans
Boris Johnson will give a press conference at 4.30pm today after dashing back to the COP26 climate summit.
The Prime Minister boarded a train from London to Glasgow this morning after he was slammed for taking a domestic flight back from the global gathering last week.
Mr Johnson will issue a desperate plea to negotiators to "pull out the stops" for real progress as the two-week summit closes this Friday or Saturday.
It came as the UK government announced a target for all new UK HGVs to be zero-emissions by 2040 - 10 years after the date for cars and vans.
But Shadow Business Secretary Ed Miliband said there had already been a “devastating reality check” - after a draft COP agreement warned far more needs to be done to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C.
Mr Miliband also suggested the Prime Minister was visiting Glasgow to distract from a growing sleaze scandal in Westminster.
Mr Johnson is thought to have axed a planned Chequers away day for Cabinet ministers tomorrow - and last night, Tory vice chair Andrew Bowie quit his role amid reports he was unable to support the government publicly over sleaze.
The Labour MP said: "It’s hard to avoid the suspicion that the PM sees a day trip to the COP as a useful way of distracting from the sleaze surrounding the Tory party, rather than a chance to get a grip and engage in the substance like a statesman."
The first draft of a COP26 agreement was published earlier today.
The "cover decision" was issued by the UK Presidency and could form a full agreement if rubber-stamped by almost 200 countries on Friday or Saturday.
UK officials hailed parts of the draft text, including a proposed commitment "to accelerate the phasing-out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels."
But despite the summit of 25,000 people in Glasgow running for two weeks, it says more decisions are needed in the short term to limit temperature rises below 1.5C.
And it admits COP26 has not achieved enough on its own to cut emissions - calling for another meeting of world leaders in 2023 to give updated pledges.
Mr Johnson said last night: "There's still much to do. Today I'll be meeting with ministers and negotiators to hear about where progress has been made and where the gaps must be bridged.
"This is bigger than any one country and it is time for nations to put aside differences and come together for our planet and our people.
"We need to pull out all the stops if we're going to keep 1.5C within our grasp."
But slamming progress in the draft agreement Mr Miliband said: “The last 24 hours have been a devastating reality check on what has actually been delivered at this summit.
“We are miles from where we need to be to halve global emissions this decade.
“Today, Boris Johnson needs to stop the spin and confront the reality.
“Given this summit will not deliver anything like what we needed, now he has to turn to plotting a path out of Glasgow that can keep 1.5 alive.”
Kate Blagojevic, Greenpeace UK’s head of climate, added: “The UK Presidency has let the most vulnerable nations down by supporting such a weak first draft text.
"Alok Sharma can still fix this and insist world leaders up their game through stronger commitments on phasing out fossil fuels and significantly increasing pledges on adaptation finance in the next draft.
"And that action can start in the UK today by ruling out all new fossil fuel projects, including the Cambo oil field, and making sure the UK’s climate finance contributions don’t eat into the aid budget.”
The document was published around six hours later than expected - a sign late-night talks are getting tougher as nations clash over the details.
It urges countries to strengthen their emissions-cutting plans for the 2020s in the next year.
It also urges them to set out long-term strategies by the end of next year to reach net-zero emissions by around mid-century.
The document voices "alarm and concern" that human activities have already caused 1.1C of warming.
And it says meeting the goal to limit global warming to 1.5C - which countries pledged to try in 2015 - needs meaningful and effective action in "this critical decade".
Scientists have warned keeping temperature rises to 1.5C needs global emissions to be cut by 45% by 2030 and to zero overall by mid-century.
But country plans for this decade leave the world well off track for the goal.
The document urges sluggish countries to submit their updated NDCs "as soon as possible" - before November 2022.
John Ashton, a former climate change envoy for the UK government, said of the document: "As you'd expect there's a very strong smell of fudge emanating from it. But actually the important thing is just to take a step back and now that the big new thing about this COP is that the public now gets the scale and the urgency of climate change.
"They want more ambition than they're getting from governments at the moment. That's a problem for the COP because it means there's a huge gap between the pledges snd the plans that are on the table and what's actually needed to keep 1,5C on the table.
“It's a very dangerous and delicate situation for the negotiators. The whole thing will be balanced on a knife edge.”