UK minister returns from COP28 for Rwanda vote in parliament
By Andrew MacAskill and Alistair Smout
LONDON (Reuters) -The British minister at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai flew back to London to vote on Tuesday on sending asylum seekers to Rwanda, a move campaigners said sent a damaging message about Britain's priorities at a crucial time for climate talks.
Graham Stuart, Minister of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, has been representing Britain in Dubai as countries attempt to agree on a global plan of action to limit climate change to prevent disastrous flooding, fatal heat and irreversible changes to the world's ecosystems.
Stuart has said that the draft test for the summit does not go far enough, and Britain would push for a more ambitious outcome.
However, with the outcome of the summit still in the balance, he left Dubai to vote on the prime minister's key policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda to act as a deterrent to those arriving in small boats on the English coast.
A spokesman for Sunak said Stuart would return to Dubai once he has voted in parliament on Tuesday evening.
"He has returned to attend parliament but will be going back shortly," Sunak's spokesman said.
Charities and campaigners criticised both the decision to leave COP and the policy that Stuart was going to vote for.
"There can be no more tragic outcome for UK climate diplomacy than this – flying home from talks to avert a climate catastrophe at the most critical moment in an attempt to salvage a cruel and impractical policy," said Chiara Liguori, Oxfam's Senior Climate Change Policy Advisor.
From Dubai to London it is a round-trip of more than 10,000 km. Asked how the government would justify the CO2 emissions, the spokesman said the government was not opposed to flying and the most important thing was the outcome at COP.
Sunak's Rwanda policy has deeply divided his party, alienating both moderates, who are worried about Britain breaching its human rights obligations, and right-wing politicians, who contend it does not go far enough.
He is trying to deport migrants to Rwanda and hopes the first flights will begin in the spring of next year, after courts blocked one planned for June 2022.
"The climate minister called back from the Dubai COP for the vote: well I guess they can say at least one flight has taken off as a result of this legislation," Yvette Cooper, opposition Labour Party interior ministry spokesperson said in parliament.
(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill and Alistair Smout, Writing by Kylie MacLellan; Editing by Kate Holton and Louise Heavens)
