The world doesn’t owe Boris Johnson any favours – or even respect

The last time the prime minister addressed the UN General Assembly, in 2019, he suggested we would soon be entering a world where “your smart meter will go hustling of its own accord for the cheapest electricity”. It’s fair to say the British energy market hasn’t quite evolved along that utopian path.

UK gas customers may be lucky if they manage to get their boilers fired up and turkeys roasted in time for Christmas, assuming the rumoured turkey crisis doesn’t materialise – another first for the Johnson administration. To complete the festive misery, there’s every chance of another Covid lockdown, and there is even loose talk about a three-day week (last seen in 1974 and the harshest Christmas since the Second World War).

As if it was a completely normal event, a government minister has appeared on the media to reassure us that there will continue to be food on the supermarket shelves, which is of course no reassurance at all. Perhaps the next development would be to have Michael Gove join us on the wireless to declare that there’s no reason he is aware of as to why the sun won’t rise tomorrow morning, though of course nothing can be ruled out in these unprecedented times.

The present energy crisis, though, is also an opportunity for the prime minister. In trouble at home, he has the chance to shine on the world stage. As as the price of hydrocarbons spikes to damaging new highs, it should remind the whole world just how unhealthily reliant it is in purely economic terms for economies on finite fossil-fuel resources – quite apart from the environmental consequences so often and conveniently overlooked. It is igniting price inflation, and that is never good news for economic growth.

Using unsustainable energy resources is becoming economically unsustainable too. Boris Johnson’s mission is to persuade the richer countries to contribute their fair share to the $100bn fund to help pay for decarbonisation and mitigation in poorer economies, and to persuade all nations to restrain their greenhouse gas emissions. The UN is a fine forum for such a plea, and it is badly needed.

The Americans are proving reluctant to commit to the fund, while President Xi of China is rumoured to be boycotting the gathering. As the International Panel on Climate Change pointed out, we are at “code red for mankind”.

Yet, as an outing for “Global Britain” and a chance for the UK to plant its flag on the world stage, as Liz Truss puts it, it looks like a bit of an embarrassment is looming as the November Cop26 meeting in Scotland approaches. Britain seems not to have the clout to make a difference.

As with the withdrawal from Afghanistan, President Biden may be personally affable towards Mr Johnson, as he is with most folk, but he seems to take little special notice of what the British have to say. As for the Chinese, they are still smarting from the nascent Aukus alliance, which they perceive to be a strategy of regional encirclement by their enemies.

Despite some pleasing evidence that Beijing (and Moscow, for that matter) has had to acknowledge the reality of man-made climate change, persuading them to scale back their use of coal remains a challenge.

Mr Johnson seems to think he can threaten the government of China with war – over, say, Taiwan – while simultaneously asking them to cut their CO2 emissions so that his Cop26 conference is a success. President Xi might wonder why he’d want to hand Mr Johnson his diplomatic triumph.

The international leadership that was supposed to blossom post-Brexit looks a rather sorry affair. This is a country that is unable to keep its McDonald’s outlets supplied with chicken, and yet presumes to tell the world how to run its affairs. It is a country that cuts overseas aid and repurposes the money as part of the $100bn climate change fund, yet expects developing nations not to notice this clumsy trick.

Mr Johnson’s Britain is one that puts trade before climate, as the recent Australian deal demonstrates. Mr Johnson’s Britain breaks its international treaty obligations and its manifesto promises as readily as any bandit regime. It loses friends and makes enemies easily.

The world doesn’t owe the clownish Mr Johnson any favours, or even respect. It is hard to see him saving the world from environmental disaster.