{"id":941252,"date":"2021-10-30T10:58:59","date_gmt":"2021-10-30T14:58:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=941252"},"modified":"2021-10-30T10:59:01","modified_gmt":"2021-10-30T14:59:01","slug":"johnson-claims-modern-civilisation-is-at-risk-over-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/johnson-claims-modern-civilisation-is-at-risk-over-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Johnson Claims Modern Civilisation Is at Risk over Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fjohnson-claims-modern-civilisation-is-at-risk-over-climate-change%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=941252&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Boris-Johnson-3-640x335-1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">ROME (AP) \u2014 British Prime Minister Boris Johnson arrived in Italy for a Group of 20 meeting on Friday with a stark warning: modern civilization could soon lie in ruins like ancient Rome if world leaders don\u2019t act to curb climate change.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-182 Component-p-0-2-173\">Johnson has one big goal at the G-20 gathering: to persuade the leaders of the world\u2019s biggest economies to put their money where their mouth is at the U.N. climate summit in Scotland that starts Sunday.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-182 Component-p-0-2-173\">Johnson will deploy his ebullience and his \u2014 admittedly divisive \u2014 charm to try to extract cash and carbon-cutting commitments from the G-20, which contains some of the world\u2019s biggest carbon emitters, including China, the United States, India and Russia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-182 Component-p-0-2-173\">Johnson told reporters aboard his plane to Rome that the Eternal City\u2019s ruins \u201care a fantastic reminder, a memento mori to us today \u2026 that humanity, civilization, society can go backwards as well as forwards and when things start to go wrong they can go wrong with extraordinary speed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-182 Component-p-0-2-173\">Still, he has expressed doubts that the COP26 climate summit will achieve its aim of extracting enough carbon-cutting commitments to keep alive the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-182 Component-p-0-2-173\">Johnson will urge G-20 leaders to act more quickly, saying the world\u2019s rich countries, which grew wealthy from using the fossil fuels that warm up the Earth, must bear the brunt of fighting climate change.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-182 Component-p-0-2-173\">He said \u201cunless we get this right in tackling climate change, we could see our world our civilization go backwards and consign future generations to a life far less agreeable than our own,\u201d with mass migrations, water shortages and conflicts because of climate change.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-182 Component-p-0-2-173\">Accounting for 75% of the world\u2019s trade and 60% of its population, the G-20 has often been accused of being too big and diffuse to take strong collective action. And Johnson\u2019s Brexit-tinged global image means his arm-twisting power may be limited.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-182 Component-p-0-2-173\">The G-20 is meeting as the European Union and ex-member Britain wrangle over trade rules, and amid a simmering U.K.-France spat over fishing rights in the English Channel. France is also incensed over a U.S.-U.K.-Australia nuclear submarine deal that saw Australia cancel a multibillion-dollar contract to buy French subs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-182 Component-p-0-2-173\">Those disputes are clouding Johnson\u2019s hopes of a \u201cG-20 bounce\u201d to build momentum for the 12-day COP26 climate conference in Glasgow. He\u2019s hoping to leave Rome bearing a sheaf of global carbon-cutting pledges, a plan to curb coal use and a long-promised, never-delivered $100 billion a year in aid to help developing countries tackle the impacts of climate change.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B3\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-182 Component-p-0-2-173\">Major G-20 polluters, including Russia and Australia, have failed to improve on the carbon-cutting pledges made after the Paris conference. Neither Chinese President Xi Jinping nor Russian President Vladimir Putin, leaders of two of the biggest carbon emitters, plan to attend the G-20 or COP26 in person.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-182 Component-p-0-2-173\">China released an updated version of its climate targets this week, promising to hit net-zero carbon emissions by 2060 and to have its emissions peak by 2030.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-182 Component-p-0-2-173\">Johnson said he \u201cpushed\u201d Xi to move the peak to 2025 when the two men spoke by phone on Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-182 Component-p-0-2-173\">\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say he committed on that,\u201d Johnson admitted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-182 Component-p-0-2-173\">The world is currently far adrift of the goal set in Paris of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, considered a threshold between manageable and disastrous climate change. Keeping \u201c1.5 alive\u201d is the focus of the Glasgow meeting. To do it, Britain has honed in on a mantra of \u201ccoal, cars, cash and trees\u201d \u2014 eliminating fossil fuels, switching to clean vehicles, spending money and stopping deforestation.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B4\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-182 Component-p-0-2-173\">Johnson faces some big obstacles to winning over the world. Britain\u2019s leader is mistrusted by many European leaders for his role in Britain\u2019s 2016 decision to leave the EU and the years of rancorous divorce negotiations that have followed. U.S. President Joe Biden has also been wary, seeing echoes in Johnson\u2019s crowd-pleasing antics of Donald Trump\u2019s populism.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-182 Component-p-0-2-173\">Johnson insists that Brexit does not mean a U.K. retreat from the world, and has championed his vision of an outward-looking \u201cGlobal Britain\u201d during the country\u2019s presidency of the Group of Seven wealthy industrialized nations this year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-182 Component-p-0-2-173\">As well as casting himself as a climate champion, he\u2019s urging G-20 nations to commit to vaccinating the world against the coronavirus by the end of 2022.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-182 Component-p-0-2-173\">Johnson makes a more credible green messenger than some rich nations\u2019 leaders. The U.K. has promised to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, and has published a detailed plan for getting there. Unlike Australia, it is on course to eliminate coal from its energy mix within a few years. And unlike the United States, there\u2019s limited political opposition in the U.K. to tougher climate rules.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-182 Component-p-0-2-173\">But the U.K.\u2019s annual budget, announced Wednesday, made scant mention of climate change while slashing passenger taxes on domestic flights and freezing taxes on automobile fuel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-182 Component-p-0-2-173\">Pessimists might wonder \u2014 if G-20 can\u2019t agree how to fight climate change, what hope is there for the almost 200 nations who will gather at COP26 in Glasgow?<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-182 Component-p-0-2-173\">Yet Jared Finnegan, a public policy expert at University College London, sees progress in the fact that a Conservative British government wants to be seen as a green leader, and in the way the global conversation on climate has shifted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-182 Component-p-0-2-173\">\u201cEven the fact that we\u2019re talking about net zero by 2050 \u2014 that is something that just wasn\u2019t on the table even five years ago,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ROME (AP) \u2014 British Prime Minister Boris Johnson arrived in Italy for a Group of 20 meeting on Friday with a stark warning: modern civilization could soon lie in ruins &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-941252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=941252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=941252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=941252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=941252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}