Backlash against UK plan to use all-male team to host Cop26 climate summit

An angry backlash has erupted over the UK fielding an all-male team to host the Cop26 summit next year.

Business secretary Alok Sharma, who will act as president, and his team of climate and energy ministers, Lord Callanan, Zac Goldsmith and Kwasi Kwarteng will front the UN climate summit in Glasgow in November 2021.

Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab will also take prominent roles in the conference.

Countries meeting at Cop26 must come up with strengthened commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions in order to hit the targets set out by the landmark Paris agreement in 2015.

Meanwhile, the leading negotiators and civil servants also form an all-male lineup: chair Peter Hill, lead negotiator Archie Young, envoy John Murton, and Foreign Office official Nick Bridge, according to the Guardian.

There are women working at a more junior level on some subsections of the negotiations.

These include UK ambassadors and climate crisis attaches in embassies, who are charged with liaising with foreign capitals ahead of the talks in November 2021.

A government spokesperson said: “The UK is committed to championing diversity and inclusivity throughout our Cop26 presidency, and our network of leaders, diplomatic representatives and expert voices reflect this in all of their work.”

The UK team was to have been led by the former Conservative MP and energy minister Claire O’Neill.

However, she was fired in February days before the formal launch of the UK’s Cop26 presidency.

Carolyn Fairbairn, the director general of the UK’s CBI employers’ organisation, fiercely criticised the lack of women.

She told the Guardian: “If ever there was a moment for real diversity in our leadership, this is it. So many communities are affected by [the climate crisis]. We need a team of all talents, and that must be diverse in all respects.”

The former president of Ireland Mary Robinson, twice a UN envoy on climate issues, also told the publication: “This diminishes the impact [the UK will have].

"Gender divisions in climate are very significant. Having women in leadership is important to ensure these issues are enthusiastically taken up.”

Muna Suleiman, climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth, told the newspaper: “Women and children are 14 times more likely than men to suffer direct impacts of natural disasters and climate breakdown, yet are regularly shut out of the decision-making that’s supposed to change things.

"The UK needs to resolve this as it hosts the UN climate talks next year, but it’s already treading familiar ground as an old boys’ club where women are left off the top table.”

A group of Extinction Rebellion writers said: "Not a single woman to rep the UK at #COP26 #climate? Sorry, but that's *unacceptable*Down pointing backhand index And if we're really going to make a difference, how about we get rid of politicians full stop? Replace them with story makers: people who point to a different future."

Another Twitter user added: "It is absolutely outrageous that the UK government intends to have an all male team for COP26 - What does that say about Global Britain?"