Sunak’s attendance at Cop28 will be a global embarrassment for Britain

Having served as the most senior Black adviser in 10 Downing Street, I know first hand how real change is always driven by outsiders.

Which is why I wasn’t surprised to find a repeat of old policies announced in the King’s Speech – namely, prime minister Rishi Sunak’s plan to accelerate annual North Sea oil and gas licensing. The announcement comes just weeks before world governments converge on the UN Cop28 climate summit hosted by the UAE – perhaps the last chance for a global deal to avoid the dreaded 1.5 degrees celsius threshold that would herald global catastrophe.

Given this urgency, Sunak’s plan is a regressive slap in the face to the international community that betrays Britain’s climate obligations at the worst possible time.

Sunak’s upcoming attendance of this month’s Cop28 summit will be a global embarrassment for Britain. With the US, EU and Africa rushing to support the Cop28 presidency’s goal of tripling global renewable energy capacity by 2030, Sunak is running hysterically in the opposite direction.

Instead of signalling Britain’s leadership on the world stage, it speaks to how this government remains stuck in the past, incapable of understanding innovation, and setting a dangerous precedent other Western nations may follow.

Of course, it’s not only climate vulnerable nations like those in Africa where I have invested much time and effort working that Britain’s reckless policies will amplify suffering for. The UK too will suffer – and sooner than we think.

The Tory government’s back-pedalling on climate goals is not an isolated incident, having last month delayed the deadline for phasing out the sale of new petrol and diesel cars. This latest declaration forms part of a long list of anti-climate policies which will set Britain’s renewable sector back years.

Whether imposing restrictions on new solar developments, introducing a de facto windfall tax on green energy, scrapping the zero-carbon homes standard, and delaying home insulation, Britain’s clean energy sector – once poised to be a major engine of economic growth – has been stunted and derailed.

Far from contributing to cheap, clean energy security, Sunak’s policies will destroy it. According to the data-driven climate science news platform Carbon Brief, at most Sunak’s North Sea licensing spree might raise energy supply by 18 terawatt hours per year (TWh/yr). But the UK government’s wrecking of net zero commitments since 2013 has already raised annual gas demand by a whopping 73TWh/yr – four times what we can get from the North Sea.

The fastest route to ending our dependence on expensive fossil fuel imports is not futilely trying to revive North Sea oil and gas where production is haemorrhaging, but to fast-track Britain’s investments in clean energy innovation. As a recent Oxford University study confirmed, Britain could power itself cheaply and efficiently with 100 per cent renewables.

Why then is Sunak hell-bent on going the other way? The reason can be found in the corridors of power, where privileged insiders like Sunak orbit, intent on preserving the status quo that tends to serve established elites well. Yet, history teaches us that progress is the hallmark of outsiders, those who are unafraid to challenge the orthodoxies that insiders defend so fiercely.

That outsider’s capacity to catalyse change is counter-intuitively exemplified in the climate space with the approach of current Cop president, Dr Sultan Al Jaber. Though not an outsider in the conventional sense – he has a huge amount of technical experience – his approach is deeply unconventional because he doesn’t fit any particular box.

Amidst much scepticism, his unique dual leadership in both the oil industry and renewable energy initiatives has proven to be an asset capable of driving transformative approaches to climate negotiations. It was certainly invaluable in navigating deeply entrenched positions to achieve an historic deal between global North and South nations for the Loss and Damage fund over the weekend. Despite the World Bank administering the fund under US pressure, his convening credibility reduced this to a temporary interim measure and ensured oversight from developing nations sitting on the fund’s board.

The fact that negotiations few thought would succeed did so is testament to the power of unconventional approaches. That unorthodox approach has also seen Al Jaber challenge the world’s biggest oil and gas companies to prepare to “phase down” fossil fuels and invest in decarbonisation – 20 companies have now signed up.

Unlike Sunak, Al Jaber also pledged that the UAE’s national oil company will not increase production if global demand is not there – meanwhile his call to triple renewable energy globally will help significantly to reduce that demand.

Though unpopular, this is the first time a Cop summit has a real chance of producing an emerging global consensus on climate finance, ramping up renewables and reducing fossil fuel use.

Compared to the Cop blueprint, Sunak is doubling down on ageing industries rather than capitalising on the future – scuppering Britain’s energy transition, failing to deliver on our own £11bn climate finance pledge for developing countries, and now throwing more money at a rapidly shrinking oil and gas sector.

The UK needs new solutions, new paradigms and new approaches to what is fast becoming a different world. Our government is doing the opposite: protecting business as usual, because that’s what suits today’s insiders, even if it’s bad for Britain. It is time we learned our lesson. Change will not come from those rooted in yesterday’s ways – it requires the courage of outsiders.

Samuel Kasumu is a former special adviser to Boris Johnson. He was the most senior Black adviser in No 10. He is the author of The Power of the Outsider (Hodder & Stoughton)