- Alok Sharma won’t seek re-election.
- Criticized delays in green policies.
- Leading COP26 climate summit.
Sir Alok Sharma, the president of COP26, has announced that he will not stand in the upcoming general election.
Reading West Conservative MP notified constituency association he won’t run for Reading West & Mid Berkshire.
Sir Alok described the decision as not being an easy one.
Recently, he criticized Rishi Sunak’s announcement of exemptions and delays to several significant environmental policies.
Having represented the Berkshire seat since 2010, Sir Alok posted on Twitter, now known as X: “Serving as the MP for a constituency in the town where I grew up has been the honor of my life, and it has been a privilege to serve in Government and represent the UK on the international stage.
He will preside over the COP26 summit in Glasgow, Scotland, in November 2021.
An agreement was reached in an attempt to combat severe climate change. This treaty was the first UN climate agreement to push for coal reduction, the most polluting fossil fuel.
However, the commitments made did not go far enough to limit the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the threshold considered critical by scientists to avoid dangerous global warming effects.
After the agreement, Sir Alok called on countries to “accelerate” their efforts to address climate change.
Earlier this month, he criticized the Prime Minister’s announcement of exemptions and delays to several key green policies, as well as a 50 percent increase in financial incentives to replace gas boilers.
The most significant change was a five-year postponement of the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars.
Sir Alok said foreign colleagues at the UN Climate Action Summit, which Mr. Sunak did not attend, expressed “consternation.”
My concern is that people may look at us and think, ‘If the United Kingdom is beginning to backtrack on some of these policies, perhaps we should do the same,'” he expressed.
