Sir Keir Starmer will rack up more air miles by attending the COP30 climate summit in Brazil next month, it was revealed today.
The Prime Minister will head to Belem, a port city known as a gateway to the Amazon rainforest, in November to push forward his Net Zero agenda.
No10 confirmed Sir Keir’s attendance at COP30 despite reports previously suggesting he would skip the meeting.
The PM’s official spokesman said Sir Keir would be making the 4,600-mile trip as part of efforts to restore the UK as ‘a global leader for climate action and green growth’.
He added that Net Zero was ‘the economic opportunity of the 21st century’ and could ‘reignite our industrial heartlands’ and ‘create good jobs for the future’.
Sir Keir’s attendance at COP30 is set to be his 40th foreign trip in just over 16 months since becoming PM.
He is also expected to attend a G20 summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, later in November, which would be his 41st foreign trip.
Sir Keir Starmer will rack up more air miles by attending the COP30 climate summit in Brazil next month
The annual COP (conference of the parties) summits bring together signatories to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to discuss efforts to halt climate change
The PM’s foreign travel, which has seen him dubbed ‘never here Keir’, includes five trips to the US – including four to Washington DC alone – and five trips to France.
He has also visited Germany on three occasions, and made two trips to each of Belgium, Italy, Norway and Ukraine.
Samoa, Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia, Canada, India, the UAE and Egypt are among other destinations the PM has made trips to since winning power.
Sir Keir’s visit to Azerbaijan came as he attended last year’s COP29 in the country’s capital Baku.
The PM was previously reported to have been considering not travelling to Brazil for this year’s COP30.
The reports brought charges of ‘hypocrisy’ from the Liberal Democrats, who pointed to Sir Keir’s criticism of Rishi Sunak over suggestions the then-PM would skip the 2022 summit.
Mr Sunak did eventually attend the summit in Egypt, and the following meeting in the United Arab Emirates.
The annual COP (conference of the parties) summits bring together signatories to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to discuss efforts to halt climate change.
Sir Keir’s decision to attend COP30 comes as Labour faces a growing challenge from new Green Party leader Zack Polanski.
At the weekend, Mr Polanski boasted of having overseen an 80 per cent increase in his party’s membership since he was elected leader at the beginning of last month.
He boasted of the Greens now having 126,000 members, which puts them ahead of the Tories and only behind Labour and Reform UK in terms of party membership size.
Senior Labour figures are reported to have warned Sir Keir that he risks being deserted by a so-called ‘Green wave’ of Left-wing voters ahead of the next general election.
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