Boris Johnson opens COP26 and compares climate crisis to time bomb

World leaders are already gathered in Glasgow, Scotland, this Monday (1st) for the opening event of COP26, the 26th United Nations Conference on Climate Change. First to speak was British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, host of the event. He compared the climate crisis to a time bomb that needs to be defused.

In mentioning climate change, Johnson recalled the fictional British secret agent, James Bond, when he called on global leaders to take concrete action for the climate. He made an analogy about “disarming a time bomb”, which is the climate crisis facing the world.

“We may not feel very much like James Bond, we don’t all look like James Bond, but we have the opportunity and the duty to make this summit the moment when humanity finally started to disarm this bomb,” he said.

Johnson even evoked young activist Greta Thunberg in her speech as saying that if world leaders don’t take their actions against climate change seriously, pledges to zero emissions will be “nothing but blah blah blah”.

“The world’s anger and impatience will not be possible to control unless we make this COP26 in Glasgow the moment when we get real about climate change,” he said.

Recently, Thunberg delivered a speech at the conference Youth for Climate, in which he mocked Johnson, as well as US President Joe Biden and French leader Emmanuel Macron, suggesting that their talks about the climate amounted to “blah, blah, blah.”

“If we don’t take climate change seriously today, it will be too late for our children to do it tomorrow,” Johnson told the leaders gathered in Glasgow. “We have to move from conversation, debate and discussion to action”, he added.

Following Johnson’s speech, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres told world leaders that “we are digging our own grave” and that the world must take immediate action.

Guterres also called for “maximum ambition” from world leaders so that the commitments established at the summit are fulfilled. “We need maximum ambition from all countries on all fronts to make Glasgow a success.”