This week Sir Keir Starmer jetted off to the Cop29 conference in Baku in Azerbaijan to make a speech for home consumption.

He announced he was accepting the recommendations of the UK’s Climate Change Committee and committed to cut emissions by 81% compared with 1990 levels by 2035.

British TV and newspapers presented this announcement as if it made a major contribution to the climate conference, whereas it was something of purely national importance.

Cop29 is a UN conference where the real matter at hand is not to set targets (which are never met), but how to finance poor countries who are most exposed to climate change.

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The UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, said small, climate-vulnerable island states have the right to be angry with rich nations for their failure to lead on climate action.

“You are on the sharp end of a colossal injustice, an injustice that sees the very future of your islands threatened by rising seas. Negotiators must finalise the creation of a loss and damage fund and boost funding for adaptation and mitigation,” Guterres said.

Starmer was seen in........

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