Rishi Sunak is back from his first overseas trip as Prime Minister. Despite Downing Street having initially said he wouldn’t go, Sunak did travel to Cop27, the international climate change summit in Egypt.

Given the UK has had three prime ministers this year, his non-attendance would have raised question marks

The problem with Sunak not going was not only that the UK was handing over the Cop presidency to the Egyptians. Given the UK has had three prime ministers this year, his non-attendance would also have raised question marks over the UK’s commitment to this climate change agenda. In the end, Sunak went and reiterated the UK’s position on the issue and the financing it promised at the last Cop in Glasgow – though this will have to come out of an aid budget that is increasingly being squeezed by other demands.

Sunak has left the summit before the most difficult part of the meeting: the whole debate over ‘loss and damage’ — the question of what should be done to help those countries being hit hardest by climate change. Frankly, the idea of ‘climate reparations’ is a non-starter: it is just not politically sellable in the industrialised world. But what can be done is far more work to share the technologies that are enabling rich countries to break the link between fossil fuels and economic growth.

The next trip Sunak will make will be more contentious. Putin’s Russia is a member of the G20 which will meet in Indonesia later this month. It seems unlikely that Putin will go. But China’s President Xi is expected to attend at a time when tensions between China and the US and its allies are growing rapidly.

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