Sir Keir Starmer has no plans to attend the UN COP30 summit in Brazil in November, despite having branded Rishi Sunak’s absence from the world’s top climate conference a “failure of leadership” just a few years ago.
Although a final decision has yet to be made, three people familiar with discussions told the Financial Times that the UK prime minister was not at present expected to be at the COP30 leaders’ summit in the Amazonian port city of Belém.
One Labour figure said there was a “big fight inside the government” between some officials pushing Starmer to make the trip to underline Britain’s commitment to climate action and others wanting him to focus on domestic issues.