Lord Dolar Popat, Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy to Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will be attending COP26 this year.
Africa will play a key role at COP26 – particularly DRC which aside from having the world’s second-largest forest, contains 70% of the world’s supply of cobalt. This rare earth metal is essential for the UK’s green revolution for electric cars, phones and batteries.
Speaking to Asian Voice, Lord Popat said, “Our ability to deliver on our green agenda is heavily reliant on our access to rare earth metals such as cobalt and lithium. With China controlling 90% of the rare metal market, this leaves the UK incredibly vulnerable, especially as we depend on rare metals for all our technological and security advances. It is essential that we consider DRC as an alternative destination for our rare metal needs.”
Lord Popat will be receiving President Tsheikedi at Glasgow Airport and his delegation of 150 people. This will be one of the largest delegations present at COP.
Ahead of COP26, COP President-Designate Alok Sharma asked Jonathan Wilkinson, Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change and Jochen Flasbarth, Germany´s State Secretary at the Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, to work together to produce a Delivery Plan on the $100 billion commitment, to demonstrate how and when developed countries will deliver on their promise.
Building on assessments of progress on the $100 billion goal to date, the Delivery Plan sets out an estimated trajectory of climate finance from 2021 through to 2025 - taking into account new climate finance pledges from individual developed countries and multilateral development banks. It also sets out principles on how to improve the delivery of climate finance.
The Plan lays out a set of guiding principles for collective actions of developed countries, including increasing financing for adaptation, addressing barriers in accessing climate finance, and improving private finance mobilisation.
Developed countries will continue to engage with developing countries and with civil society to ensure climate finance is delivered effectively, efficiently and at scale.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, "I am very worried because it might go wrong and we might not get the agreements that we need and it is touch and go," Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.”
