If Johnson thinks he can charm his way to success at Cop26, he's sorely mistaken | Larry Elliott

Preparations for the crucial climate conference aren't going well: with its aid cuts, the UK is hardly setting an exampleIt ought to be simple, but it will be anything but. When almost 200 countries gather for the UN Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow in November, they will do so under the shadow of two crises: a global pandemic that emerged out of nowhere and a climate emergency that nearly everybody has been able to see coming.Governments have spent trillions of pounds, dollars and euros in the battle against Covid-19. They have the incentive - as Boris Johnson puts it - to build back better, to channel that stimulus into the greening of the global economy. If ever there was a time to think big and be bold then this is it. Continue reading...