Environment secretary George Eustice has hailed India’s commitment to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2070 as a “big step forward” — despite it coming 20 years after the global target.
World leaders and climate activists have gathered in Glasgow for the landmark summit to try to reach a consensus on how to tackle the climate crisis.
Key to the summit is the effort to get major economies to commit to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
India’s prime minister Narendra Modi unveiled the target at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow on Monday, alongside pledges on non-fossil energy capacity and renewable resources.
Eustice welcomed India’s move but admitted: “Obviously we would prefer it if all countries committed to do net zero earlier.”
However, he said “we should also welcome this is a big step forward.
“India hadn’t previously committed to net zero. They have got more to do to get there, and we should welcome what they’ve committed to, even though we would always hope that people would commit to do it earlier,” he told Sky News.
Pressed by presenter Kay Burley on how countries would be held to account over such commitments, Eustice replied: “There will be staging posts along the way.”
The environment secretary also welcomed a deal reached with more than 100 world leaders to end and reverse deforestation by 2030.
Brazil, home to the Amazon rainforest, will sign up to the deal, in what Eustice called an “important breakthrough” that “bodes well” for the rest of Cop26.
He said: “This is an important breakthrough, had you spoken to me five days ago I also would’ve been apprehensive about whether we would’ve landed this agreement on forests but we have and it’s looking really encouraging. This is a big breakthrough.”
Eustice was also quizzed on why, as environment secretary, he was not yet in Glasgow for the summit.
The environment secretary said he would be attending the summit on Saturday and he would arrive by train — following criticism that world leaders, including Boris Johnson, had travelled to the conference by plane.
Asked what he did personally to alleviate climate change and whether he had an electric car or heat pump at home, Eustice replied: “I have got a small Mini that has a green mode on it but I don’t yet have an electric vehicle.”
Asked if he has a heat pump, he said: “No, I don’t have a heat pump at the moment but it’s certainly something that I would look at.
“I’m the same as many other people, we all want to do the right thing and make these changes, we need the technology to come forward, we need to set a trajectory, everybody wants to make these changes, sometimes the technology is not quite there yet but we are making progress in the right direction.”
Asked what changes personally he has made to protect the environment, Mr Eustice said he tries to “pay attention to the dividing of waste and making sure we recycle as much as possible”.
“I’m going to be going to Cop by train and whenever I travel to the constituency I generally do so by train,” he added.