A Labour MP has slammed the government’s “hypocrisy” after it was revealed that 470 UK officials flew to climate talks in Azerbaijan.
Ex-minister Graham Stringer said it was “symbolic of the hypocrisy of the net zero policy” that such a big delegation went to COP29 in Baku.
He added: “There are more private jets and large jets going to Baku than anywhere else at the moment. It’s a complete waste of money.
“They don’t seem to have noticed that although they claim leadership of Net Zero, nobody is following. It would have been a bigger commitment to reducing carbon dioxide if they’d sent [Miliband] and nobody else.”
The UK’s delegation included 354 Government officials or ministers.
The remaining 116 included representatives from Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, business figures, policy experts and journalists.
Official figures showed the British delegation is bigger than that sent by the United States and other major European countries including France, Germany and Italy.
With Baku almost 2,500 miles from London, the British delegation is estimated to have collectively racked up 2.3 million air miles for return trips.
Each return flight pumps out at least 0.7 tons of CO2 per passenger, making the delegation’s flights’ total carbon footprint at least 338 tons of CO2.
Reform MP Richard Tice said: “This is the Everest of hypocrisy. Public sector servants have wasted millions of pounds on a glorified net eero holiday. I could understand 30 or 40 people going but ten times that is absolutely absurd.”
Sir Keir Starmer used his appearance at the summit last week to announce the UK would slash emissions by 81% by 2035, compared with 1990 levels.
He said: “The race is on for the clean energy jobs of the future, the economy of tomorrow, and I don’t want to be in the middle of the pack. I want to get ahead of the game.”
Meanwhile the COP climate talks are “no longer fit for purpose” and need an urgent overhaul, key experts including a former UN secretary general and former UN climate chief have said.
In a letter to the UN, external, senior figures say countries should not host the talks if they don’t support the phase out of fossil energy.
The Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliye last week told world leaders gathered in his country for COP29 that natural gas was a “gift from God” and he should not be blamed for bringing it to market.
