Senator Gorst and his Guernsey counterpart Deputy Jonathan Le Tocq had talks with the Conservative MP, who took up his duties at BEIS in September, on Thursday. It was the first time that a Jersey politician had attended a COP26 meeting.
Following the meeting, Senator Gorst tweeted: ‘Grateful to meet with Minister @GregHands to mark the UK’s intention to extend UK ratification of the Paris Agreement to the Crown Dependencies. We look forward to furthering our joint working on climate and sustainability.’
Although the Jersey government this week published its preferred strategy for achieving carbon neutrality, the Island does not currently have any formal obligations under the Paris Agreement to which 192 parties, including the European Union, are signatories.
However, the strategy confirms the Island’s intentions to seek an extension of the agreement, which commits parties to reduce substantially their greenhouse-gas emissions to limit global temperature increase to 2°C this century, while seeking to achieve an increase of only 1.5°C.
The strategy states: ‘As part of the preparations for COP26 in Glasgow, Jersey is working closely with the UK government and the other Crown Dependencies to reach agreement that the Paris Agreement commitment will be extended to cover Jersey and the other Crown Dependencies. Work is currently under way to extend The Paris Agreement to Jersey.’
However, in spite of Senator Gorst’s social media post, the government press officer remained silent on the detail of progress at COP26.
A spokesperson said they would not be commenting until current discussions had been completed.
