Guardian: Ed Miliband to lead UK negotiations at Cop29 climate summit

Ed Miliband is to take personal control of the UK’s negotiations at vital international climate talks, in stark contrast to his Tory predecessors.

Report informs via The Guardian that the energy security and net zero secretary will attend Cop29, this year’s UN climate summit, in Azerbaijan this November to head the UK’s delegation and meet political leaders from around the world.

Senior figures in climate diplomacy welcomed the move and said UK leadership would be vital to what is expected to be a tricky and fraught UN climate summit this year.

Christiana Figueres, the former UN climate chief who presided over the Paris agreement, now founding partner of the Global Optimism thinktank, said: “Ed Miliband has proven experience at Cops and all matters related to those multilateral negotiations. Throughout 14 years he has kept his vigilant eye on the ups and downs, and will not need to start from scratch at all.”

Figueres said: “The fact that the multilateral negotiations will be led by the secretary of energy himself instead of delegating to a junior minister denotes recognition of the importance of the process as we near the halfway point in this decisive decade. We could not be more pleased with the news.”