O’Neill to speak out on COP26 sacking

Claire O’Neill will break her silence next week on the government’s handling of COP26, ten months after she was sacked from the presidency of the UN climate summit.

The former minister of state for energy and climate change will be grilled next Tuesday by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) select committee on the government’s leadership and preparations for COP26, which is due to be held in Glasgow one year from now.

O’Neill took on the role of COP president, overseeing the UK’s preparations for the landmark conference, when she left the government after Boris Johnson became prime minister in the summer of 2019.

However, she was sacked from the COP role at the end of January and replaced by BEIS secretary of state Alok Sharma.

She was due to appear before the committee in late March to give evidence about the government’s COP preparations but the meeting was cancelled along with most other non-Covid related Parliamentary business.

O’Neill, who was known by her former married name of Perry when in government, has since become managing director, climate & energy at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

The committee will also hear from a panel of experts, including the EU’s ex-lead negotiator on climate issues.

Peter Betts was the government’s director of international climate policy from 2008 to 2018 leading the EU’s negotiating team on these issues for six years up to 2016, including at the UN 2015 Paris summit.

Darren Jones, chair of the BEIS committee, has written to Sharma, expressing concern that the government is not “sufficiently clear” about what it is seeking to achieve at COP26.

“It is not clear from public communications what the government’s cross-cutting strategic aims are, nor have these been published in a readily accessible form.”