Matthew Pennycook MP, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Climate Change, commenting on the concluding day of the Petersberg Climate Dialogue XI co-hosted by the UK and Germany, said:

“Climate and ecological breakdown will demand our attention long after the coronavirus is brought under control. The success of the national effort to defeat the virus remains our priority, but it must not diminish our commitment to the action required this decade to avert runaway global heating.

“At this year’s Petersberg Climate Dialogue, the government rightly committed itself to increasing global climate ambition in order to deliver on the Paris Agreement. To lead the world at the postponed COP26 UN climate change conference next year, the government’s deeds will have to match its words with a green economic recovery plan of sufficient ambition to put the UK back on track to meet its legally-binding emissions targets and achieve net zero”.