 Last week, Tory MP Owen Patterson was found to have broken MP lobbying rules by an independent standards committee. Today, our Tory government responded by overturning the ruling and abolishing that standards committee. It's all pretty brazen tonight. I'll be talking to MP Lloyd Russell Moyle about Tory sleaze and about today's events in the Commons. Also on the show, we've got an update from COP26 with Adrian Buller and then a fiery interview with Boris Johnson on CNN. Dahlia, I'm afraid, is unwell this evening so I am hosting solo today. That means I'm especially keen for your comments and your super chats so I don't get lonely here. You know the score if you haven't already do hit that subscribe button. Owen Patterson is a formatory environment secretary currently a back bench MP. Last week, Patterson was found to have a broken lobbying rules which govern MP's conduct. Specifically, he was found by an independent committee to have been paid substantial sums by two private companies and then use his position as an MP to work in their interests. The companies in question were Randox, which is a clinical diagnostics firm and Lin's Country Foods, a processor and distributor of meat products. These gigs were pretty lucrative so Randox paid him £8,333 per month. That's only for 16 hours work a month and it works out as £100,000 per year so nice work if you can get it. Lin's Country Foods paid him £2,000 for four hours work every month so that's £12,000 a year so in total £112,000 he was paid for 20 hours a month. Jesus Christ. I'm feeling quite bitter now. I'm not in favour of MP's having lucrative second and third jobs in the first place whatever they do whatever the rules are unfortunately you know rules are not broken by taking these side jobs. However, what's not allowed is then lobbying for the companies that are employing you according to the House of Commons Commissioner on Standards Owen Patterson had breached the rule prohibiting paid advocacy in making free approaches to the food standards agency relating to Randox and the testing of antibiotics in milk in November 2016 and November 2017 in making seven approaches to the food standards agency relating to Lin's Country Foods in November 2017 January 2018 and July 2018 and in making four approaches to ministers at the Department for International Development relating to Randox and blood testing technology in October 2016 and January 2017. Oh there he is that's Owen Patterson there he's getting paid a handsome sum to work for these firms and then he's arranging meetings with people in government because he's an MP and he has he has that access. All this meant the Commission on Standards found that Mr Patterson's approaches could clearly have conferred significant benefits on Randox and Lin's in the long term and even the short term secured meetings that were not available without Mr Patterson's involvement. Patterson's actions were an egregious case of paid advocacy that he repeatedly used his privileged position to benefit two companies for whom he was a paid consultant and that this brought the house into disrepute. There is no ambiguity there and this does indeed seem like a pretty clear cut case. The Committee on Standards which is made up of Labour and Tory MPs alongside independent lay members decided that these misdemeanours warranted a 30-day suspension for Patterson the length of the suspension would have meant that Owen Patterson could be subject to a recall petition by constituents so if 10% of his constituents voted or signed that recall petition sorry that would trigger a by-election. The catch here is that any sanction recommended by the independent committee has to be ratified in a vote by all MPs that vote happened today and whipped by Boris Johnson a majority of MPs voted against it. They voted against the findings of that independent committee. Even more brazenly MPs also chose the occasion to abolish the independent standards committee and replace it with another. Both were disgraceful moves and they meant it's been a pretty heated day in the House of Commons. This was Angela Rainer at PMQs. The independent standards process found that a member brought the rules on paid lobbying. Surely the Prime Minister accepts that this is and should be a serious offence. Yet we have seen reports that he will respond by scrapping the independent process and overturning its verdict. In no other profession in our country could someone be found guilty by an independent process and just have their mates vote them back into the job. Surely the Prime Minister and this Government are not going to do that today. No, of course we're not going to do that because a paid lobbying, paid advocacy in this House is wrong. Let me make absolutely no bones about that. Members who are found guilty of that should apologise and pay the necessary penalties. That is not the issue in this case or this vote that is before us today. It is not. The issue in this case which involved a serious family tragedy is whether a member of this House had a fair opportunity to make representations in this case and whether as a matter of natural justice our procedures in this House allow for proper appeal. That I think is something that should be of interest to members across this House and should be approached properly in a spirit of moderation and compassion. Reina was in that PMQ's covering for Keir Starmer who was self-isolating after testing positive for Covid. In that interaction there you heard Boris Johnson defending the Tories action by mentioning family tragedy. That's a reference to the tragic suicide of Owen Patterson's wife last year. That is of course horrible, really horrible that anything like that has happened. It doesn't have much to do with corruption. Johnson also criticised the independent process by which Patterson was found to have broken the rule saying it didn't allow for fair representation or appeal. On the representation front that has been denied by the committee. They in fact accepted written evidence from his supporters but didn't feel the need to hear the oral evidence as nothing they said was contested. You only really need the oral evidence if you're challenging what was said. The facts of the matter in the Owen Patterson case haven't been contested. On the issue of the appeal, I mean this could have been credible if Boris Johnson had raised it before one of his friends was found guilty by the independent commission. It doesn't stack up to make this intervention only when a decision has gone against you. On that point Angela Reina swung and she didn't miss. Mr Speaker, let me put this to him simply. If it was a police officer, a teacher, a doctor, we would expect the independent process to be followed and not changed after the verdict. It's one rule for them and one rule for the rest of us. Mr Speaker, when a Conservative member was found guilty of sexual harassment but let off on a loophole, they said the rules couldn't be changed after the event. So they can't change the rules to stop sexual harassment but they can change the rules to allow cash for access. So why is the Prime Minister making it up as he goes along? All the professions that she mentions have a right of appeal. That is what the House needs to consider. May I respectfully say to her that I believe that she needs to vote, instead of playing politics on this issue, which is what they are doing, I think that she needs to consider the procedures of this House in a spirit of fairness. On this side, instead of playing politics, we are getting on with delivering on the people's priorities. 40 more hospitals, 20,000 more police officers and wages up both up and jobs up across this country. Those are our priorities. In her question there, Angela Reina was referring to Rob Roberts. He was briefly suspended from Parliament after sexual misconduct claims were investigated but he was able to avoid a recall petition because of a technicality. So as I said, a recall petition when you can have constituents come forward, sign a petition and potentially prompt a by-election, he avoided that because of a technicality. Let's look at a write-up of the details of that particular event. This is from the independent. So they write, a loophole meant the disgraced MP who has had his Tory membership reinstated but still sits as an independent in the commons was able to avoid a recall petition because of the length of the suspension was recommended by the independent expert panel rather than a commons committee. Earlier this month, the government closed the loophole for future cases but voted down a motion from Labour to make the changes retrospective. So as you can see here, Angela Reina had a very strong point. In this case Boris Johnson said yes, the outcome was unfair but we can't change rules retrospectively. In this case, Boris Johnson has said, oh, the rules are unfair even though he doesn't have very good evidence for that and now he's very, very happy to change the rules retrospectively. It completely, completely stinks. The debate in parliament went on after PMQs. We have spoken already, as Angela Reina pointed out there, what is particularly controversial is this, the nature of overriding the judgment of a committee whilst it was in process, whilst it was investigating or in fact after it had come down with a verdict about a Tory MP. What's also controversial is what is proposed to be replacing it. So the committee which will be tasked with drawing up new regulations for MPs will be made up of nine MPs, five of them will be Conservatives. So there will be an inbuilt majority for the Tories. In a debate in the Commons this afternoon Caroline Luke has challenged Jacob Rees-Mogg on what looks like a stitch up. If you could explain why it's appropriate that this new select committee should have an inbuilt government majority where the Standards Committee doesn't with its lay members and if this is about trying to improve our processes why is he running the risk of making it look to anybody looking in from the outside that essentially it's like someone who's been found guilty of a crime but instead of actually serving a sentence what happens is that his mates come together and try to change the judicial system. It looks really bad. Sometimes to do the right thing one has to accept a degree of a premium but it is more important to do the right thing to ensure that there is a fairness. Jacob Rees-Mogg though was responding as leader of the House. Throughout the debate his answers were incredibly unconvincing. However, due to the Tories 80 seat majority ultimately the strength of anyone's arguments wasn't what determined the final result. This is the moment the vote on Ledson's amendment came in. The eyes to the right 250 the nose to the left 232. I want to read the result. The eyes to the right 250 the nose to the left 232 the eyes have it the eyes have it a lot. That was the vote on Andrea Ledson's amendment to abolish the Standards Committee MPs went on then to vote against Owen Patterson's suspension. That doesn't necessarily mean this is the end of the story because while they have voted against his suspension that doesn't mean he is completely in the clear. His fate will be decided by this nine MP committee that's just been established in this incredibly opportunistic way in the Commons today. That's supposed to be made up as I said of five Tory MPs for opposition MPs. It turns out the opposition MPs are potentially getting organised to boycott that committee which could further erode its legitimacy. To discuss a fiery day in the Commons I'm joined by Labour MP Lloyd Russell Moyle. Lloyd, welcome back to Navarra Media. Very good to see you and hear from you today. Talk me through today's events in the Commons. You were there. Did you feel as if Tory MPs who voted this through believed what they were saying or was this all just a complete farce and a facade? A charade sorry. I think most Tory MPs didn't really believe. There was a lot of agrarian faces. I mean a number of the Conservatives that I spoke to some of whom did rebel said the only person that Paterson is working for is himself. Let's remember this is a man who earned £100,000 extra a year to do corporate lobbying and I mean we spoke to one MP as we were going over and my colleague said you must be really embarrassed about this and he kind of said with despair oh I've given up I'm not embarrassed about anything anymore because it's all just too embarrassing but he still went and voted with the Conservatives. So I think that a lot of them know that this is pretty embarrassing. A lot of them know it might come back and fight them on the rear end. I think what is extraordinary is Ledson's kind of approach to this. Previously she's been seen as quite a reasonable person on these things and suddenly she's kind of pretending that she's upset that people are saying she's doing this in bad faith. It's clear she's doing bad faith. I mean I spoke to one Tory who has a 10% rebellion left. It's hardly like he's a very loyal Conservative but he said to me this is the worst one that he has rebelled on for him because he knows that it is so corrupt. So I think that they know it but they will all fall in line and forget it if it means them keeping their jobs and Boris Johnson if you remember was so ruthless when he first came in to people who spoke out you know he removed the whip from Clark, Ken Clark etc but I actually think that a lot of Conservatives are slightly scared. Next question to you is about Labour strategy here so as far as I understand it the Labour Party and the SNP are going to boycott this new committee which is supposed to draw up you know the new rules for standards of MPs. There'll be nine on there they're supposed to be nine on there so it could just be a committee of five Tory MPs. Do you think that will be an effective way to keep this controversy rolling on? Well I'm pleased that that has been the decision of the Labour leadership but as you pointed out at the beginning it seems like one of the things that we've listened to from the left it will help the controversy carry on for a bit. Let's remember this is a committee that is set up to review the situation and to change the way the system works. Its recommendations will have to come back to a vote in Parliament so what we will need to be doing is delegitimising that vote when it comes around. The old standards committees actually is not abolished by this process it just kind of creates a double jeopardy situation and I guess what they're trying to do is mean that if Chris Bryant's standards committee finds someone guilty they can go to this kangaroo court and find them not guilty or find it through a different process. So that's where we are at the moment and I think it's important that we just focus on the current committee and the current system. They aren't perfect either actually you know there are lots of problems with it but I think when there's votes come back and some of those votes might even have to go to the Laws there is a good argument there to say that they're delegitimised because it was only conservatives that decided it. What are the problems with the current system? So obviously you know the Boris Johnson's defenders have been going out and actually we showed a clip of him in PMQs saying that you know it doesn't allow for appeal, it doesn't allow for natural justice. Do any of those arguments stack up? I mean none of us are going to be convinced that that's why they've made this decision on this particular day, on this particular occasion when their friend has been found to have done something wrong. But sort of aside from that are there problems with the current system that need changing and what are they? Well only a month ago we had had to make an amendment to the current system because it didn't treat sex pests as if in the same way as people fiddled the money and so that means that we've got a conservative sex pest that we know and is found guilty of those things running around the corridors and they can't get rid of them. So that for example is one of the things that is wrong but that has been changed. There is some arguments that maybe you would want an independent appeal process you know kind of if this was a workplace you would have a place where you could go to the final upper tier tribunal if you felt like there had been some procedures that had been done wrong. Now the argument on our side is yes that's what a by-election is and if the people in your area think you've been treated really badly by parliament they'll re-elect you won't they? You know kind of there comes a point where you can't have courts and judges deciding whether an MP needs to stay it is down to the people and all this process does is trigger a potential by-election and if he thinks he's done nothing wrong if the Conservatives think he's done nothing wrong then he should be standing that by-election and the people get to decide but they want another part of the process where they can stitch it up so that's what they're wanting there. There are some other problems around you know kind of whether you're heard or not how minor offences are dealt with but that's nothing to do with this case does that make sense you know kind of you know sometimes the commissioner ends up getting caught out getting people caught up because they've gone to a free party that a media organisation might have put on one weekend and you've got to declare that and if you don't declare that you can get into trouble but in reality those are minor offences. I'm worried you've got into trouble now for going to sort of TWT Navarra conference party I hope that's not the case I'll have it be known Lloyd has never put in favours for us and we don't employ him anyway so it doesn't matter. Lloyd I want to know what you think the public will think about this lobby journalists now for some reason their sort of first response when it comes to controversy is to say well people won't care anyway they sort of put themselves in the position of a party strategist Laura Koonsberg did this this morning so she tweeted the following senior MP says they've just been ordered by whips to back the ledsome amendment this is a proper Westminster village story but it's really important if you care about how MP's actions and behaviour is monitored so this is a proper Westminster village story it's actually quite similar to the expenses scandal right it's an MP who is getting paid a handsome sum 100,000 pounds on top of his decent MP salary this isn't the kind of thing that people in the public will just think oh that's completely normal to be getting paid 112,000 pounds by two private businesses and then set up government meetings for them that shouldn't really be a Westminster village story she might have swallowed someone else's line there um Aubrey Allegretti at the Guardian disagreed so he tweeted the following despite attempts by some to paint the row over Owen Patterson as a Westminster bubble story Tory MPs say they're already getting emails from furious constituents it's starting to worry some another Tory MP admits their inbox is in meltdown over the move to avoid suspending Patterson today they said I know the usual suspects the messages I'm getting aren't from them Lloyd um I don't know if you if your inbox is full I suppose the the angry emails would presumably be targeted at people who who voted in in favour of what Boris Johnson wanted so you wouldn't be a prime target for it but do you think this is the kind of thing that's going to have Tory electoral strategists worrying do you think they've they've potentially gone a bit too far here I don't think any one instance makes uh makes a downfall of a government but what happens is if it plays into a wider narrative now let's be honest Johnson's narrative of Keir being Captain Hyanside cut through with the public and now a lot of the public in my constituency say or you just say Matt in Hyanside you're you're part of Captain Hyanside's team well equally if we can make it stick that actually the Tories are with sleaze it won't be this instance but this will be an example of an instance that will push people over um and will be part of that kind of weight of things and this of course is only one instance of Tory sleaze whether it's Hancock giving kind of dodgy deals to his pub landlord mate whether it's you know kind of the sex pest whether it's you know kind of Patterson himself and I think that it does start to cut through and we saw that into um 92 to 97 and it didn't mean that Tories switched to Labour let's not be in some kind of we didn't suddenly have blue rinse brigade turning into communists what it meant is they didn't bother turning out of the next election and actually that helps us a little slightly lower turnout actually helps the Labour party in the left because what it is it's conservatives effectively saying I just don't trust my own side and I'm not really going to support them in and get out for them so that might be a strategy and I think it will start to work but if it ends now and we have an election in two years time it will be forgotten if it dribbles on and keeps playing on and that's why not sitting on the committee is important voting against it when the next vote comes around finding more scandals because there are more scandals here there are loads of more scandals because the conservatives are in the lobbyist pockets the developers pockets we know we generate for example or whoever the next one will be they are there waiting to be exposed a quick question from Mike John Green in the super chats why did only 480 MPs vote and Mike John Green says please ask Lloyd I can see 98 conservative MPs did not vote I assume that's not that they were paired was it is that just that they they stayed actively or some will have not voted because they've sat on their hands and abstained some will be paired I mean with copies happening at the moment I'm getting about to get the night train up um but some people will have gone up already you know kind of I think Barry Gardner was already already up there for example so that's why some people would have abstained and there is no way of us knowing why personally I don't think you should have pairing oh I think pairing should be published so you know who's officially paired and then you would know who's actually abstained but the whips don't like that because they like the murkiness of it um and they like the kind of slightly backhanded channels because then they can kind of say oh well we'll we'll pretend that you were paired if you now do a favor for us later on so that's what will be happening to those conservatives that abstained and weren't paired they will be told well it wasn't as bad as breaking the whip there might be a way you can come back out of this very interesting but it's also sinister isn't it what goes on there Lloyd Russell thank you so much for joining us this evening always a pleasure to speak to you cheers um Saul with uh Fiverr says Owen Patterson described EU law making a shockingly corrupt with a lack of accountability that would make a dictator blush um that is from Buzzfeed March 2016 so he was um at one point someone who cared about corruption not anymore um let's go straight on to our next story Wednesday was finance day at cop 26 bringing together finance ministers and central bankers to discuss how to fund a green transition UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak speaking to the conference declared that the rich world would belatedly meet their decade-old pledge to provide a hundred billion dollars per year to developing countries he also spent time emphasizing the importance of private finance but public investment alone isn't enough our second action is to mobilize private finance let me pay an enormous tribute to Mark Carney for his leadership leadership that is delivering results the Glasgow financial alliance for net zero has now brought together financial organizations with assets worth over a hundred and thirty trillion dollars of capital to be deployed this is a historic wall of capital for the net zero transition around the world Mark Carney whose Sunak reference there is the former governor of the bank of England and now chair of the Glasgow financial alliance for net zero that promise of a hundred and thirty trillion dollars to achieve net zero which was blazoned on the screen behind Sunak does sound impressive but is it all just hot air to find out I'm joined by Adrian Buller who is an environmental economist at the Commonwealth think tank Adrian welcome back to Navarra hi how are you nice hair it looks great thank you very much I appreciate it um my first question she was about that a hundred and thirty trillion dollars which is apparently being made available to achieve net zero that's a lot of money so if that were the case that would be transformational is there really a hundred and thirty trillion dollars which is now committed to achieving net zero what's going on here what are they talking about yeah I mean not at all so if it sounds like an outrageously large number that's because it is to put it in context like the combined capitalization of every listed company in the entire world is a hundred and twenty trillion so less than this and it's because this number has nothing to do with money that's like actually committed to any kind of activities related to climate finance it's just the aggregate pool of assets that is controlled in some shape or form by the 450 or so financial institutions that have signed up to that so insurers asset managers banks basically anything they've got on their balance sheets counts towards that hundred and thirty trillion dollar figure that means things like my credit card debt or if you have a mortgage you know that's an asset that's technically counted in that figure but obviously that's not being mobilized in any way um towards combating the climate crisis so it's it's a kind of clever sleight of hand although it's so ridiculous that I think they almost kind of overstepped it because it becomes very obvious that it's a bit of an obscene figure the depressing bit is that even at that size it's actually still less than half of global financial assets it's about 40 percent that's even made this kind of ambiguous commitment to maybe one day sort of align themselves with net zero what is the commitment that they've they've made so they've joined this alliance which is which mark carney seems to be leading what what have they committed to what have they suggested that they will do yes my canadian breathman mark carney has basically committed everyone to sign up to this pledging voluntarily that they will align their portfolios with net zero by 2050 um the trouble is that there's no sort of agreed standard on how about actually looks for the financial system it's a complicated question you're funding things that might have lifetimes extend decades into the future so it's tricky to actually do and those kinds of things can take you know years to establish which are obviously years that we don't have um and you know they've said that they're going to create an international standards kind of board to do that but who knows how long that will really take and even then you know these are voluntary commitments and what matters is you know what happens in the next few years up to 2030 is absolutely imperative to whether or not we'll be able to reach net zero by 2050 and there's nothing in this agreement that says you can't you know continue funding new fossil fuel projects into the future even though the international energy agency has already you know it's a pretty conservative organization and it has already said you know there is no space for new fossil fuel projects um and so basically it's just kind of like a toothless exercise in PR in my opinion you know it's great that finance has decided it cares about its green image um but unfortunately it's at the moment just kind of all voluntary wishy washy fluff basically let's go back to our friend Rishi um because he did make some separate pledges which sounded to me at least like they would have some legislative force i wouldn't be entirely voluntary um here he is in that in that same speech saying he would help rewire the financial system to to funnel that cash towards a green transition let's take a look what matters now is action to invest that capital in our low carbon future to do that investors need to have as much clarity and confidence in the climate impact of their investments as they do in the traditional financial metrics of profit and loss so our third action is to rewire the entire global financial system for net zero better and more consistent climate data sovereign green bonds mandatory sustainability disclosures proper climate risk surveillance stronger global reporting standards all things we need to deliver and i'm proud that the uk is playing its part we've already made it mandatory for businesses to disclose climate-related financial information with 35 other countries signing up to do the same today i'm announcing that the uk will go further and become the first ever net zero aligned financial center this means we are going to move towards making it mandatory for firms to publish a clear deliverable plan setting out how they will decarbonize and transition to net zero with an independent task force to define what's required so rishi sunak they're talking about new transparency commitments on firms to disclose and their environmental impacts and environmental risks and also a responsibility for uk firms to demonstrate they are on track towards net zero and he's suggesting there'll be some sort of independent body to to make sure they they are doing that adrian were either of of those two or announcements or or suggestions from rishi sunak were they were they significant i mean there's a couple good things sprinkled in there you know give us some crumbs which are you know green sovereign bonds or an international reporting standard but ultimately i mean he doesn't even accurately represent his own you know new strategy in that speech so the commitments around mandating that companies disclose how they'll get to net zero is actually a lot weaker than that so you can just go on the government's own fact track website and it says you know will may or will reporting how your company will reach net zero the mandatory and the answer is no what they are mandating is that you you know disclose some information that you've thought about transition risks you've thought about the climate crisis and you know how you'll adapt to the transition in some way but there's no actual requirement for you to commit to reaching that zero by 2050 and set out plans to do that there's also no requirement around you know eliminating carbon intensive activities so again it all comes down to you know this idea that somehow with more information with enough perfect information the rational actors of the market will finally you know allocate capital appropriately when obviously you know that's not the case the financial crisis was any indication but you know we've got lots of information we know that coal plants are driving the climate crisis and yet we continue to finance them the problem is that it's you know profitable in the near term and you know the chancellor doesn't want to do anything to kind of to get in the way of that so it's all kind of about you know disclosure what this will mean for companies as opposed to you know actually kind of having any any impact on what they'll really they'll really do in the real economy you know that's a really that's a really good point transparency will only get us so far given that we we know which industries are polluting and you know that they're still doing it there was some potential good news from COP26 at least the headline that really got my attention which was that potentially the commitments made at COP26 will help limit global warming or predicted to limit global warming to below two degrees that's according to a report by scientists at the University of Melbourne they modeled that yes if if the latest commitments are all reached then warming would only be 1.9 degrees now say only 1.9 degrees obviously we need it to be 1.5 degrees to to avoid tipping points etc and for the most vulnerable countries to be okay but you know that's a it's a big advantage on what came before and we can go to from the scientists involved this is according to The Guardian the report's author Malt Meinhausen an associate professor in climate science at Melbourne and a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said the momentous shift in the projected global warming was largely triggered by recent improvements in India and China's emission targets for 2030 as well as India's commitment to net zero by 2070 he said it was the first time the combined pledges and probable emissions path of more than 190 countries had given a better than 50 chance of limiting warming to below two degrees now Adrian as I said you know we're aiming for 1.5 degrees so 1.9 is still you know it's still not what we need but it's a hell of a lot of you know it's a downside improvement from what we've been used what we've been used to hearing before COP I think we were supposed to be on track to 2.7 do you buy this do you think this is this is this is credible but that now we have we've got the deals we need to keep below two degrees yeah I mean you know I'm not a climate modeler so I'm going to assume that the science is sound um however I think you know yeah it's great to have this kind of news prior to this the same models were showing that you know based on the nationally determined contributions that had already been made before this COP we were closer to you know three degrees so that's that's a market improvement a lot of it comes down to you as you pointed out there the pledges from China India other major emitters like Nigeria and great at the end of the day it is still 50 chance of reaching a temperature that commits you know unfathomable numbers of more people to suffering every year you know drought extreme weather flooding and a lot of it comes down to two things one you know what happens in the next 10 years so up until 2030 you know it's not that we can just kind of faff around until 2040 and then be like okay now we're going to do net zero every single ton of carbon that we emit makes it harder and harder to reach net zero and makes that that curve steeper and steeper so all of it will hinge on you know what countries actually do in the near term and the other fact is that a lot of these commitments that have been incorporated into that analysis are from lower income and emerging economies that have made them and very rightfully so contingent on rich countries meeting basic commitments about you know the climate finance pledge of a hundred billion dollars a year that we've been failing to meet scaling that up and you know all sorts of kind of transfers ideally of wealth in the form of cash grants although that's perhaps wishful thinking you know from the global north to the global south so there's a lot of contingencies in there but you know those contingencies have always been there so it is you know a sliver of potential soft minute good news amidst an otherwise kind of bin fire of a conference but yeah there's still a lot of contingency and you know 1.9 as you pointed out is still not good enough I'm going to I'm going to point to maybe two more slivers of good news so a couple of developments when we when we spoke to Simon Lewis on Monday he suggested that side deals on specific areas could be a big deal at this COP26 so it's not all about what gets negotiated and signed on the final day it's also what deals get made on the side we got two of those on Tuesday one was on methane so here 103 countries have signed a deal to reduce methane emissions by 30% by the end of the decade that deal includes Britain the US the EU Indonesia Pakistan and Argentina it doesn't include China India and Russia they are free of the top five methane emitters and it also doesn't include Australia who are you know the the real laggard when it comes to climate action the other was on deforestation so here we have a nice pledge a nice promise over 100 litres of pledge to end deforestation by 2030 here the pledge includes almost 14 billion pounds of public and private funds and includes countries which cover around 85% of the world's forests so that includes Canada Brazil Russia China Indonesia the democratic Republic of Congo the US and the UK um Adrian how how significant do you think these these are these these seem like you know it is a cause for small celebration again um yeah you know the optimist in me wants the thing that they are a cause for small celebration so the methane one is interesting right because what i was talking about before in terms of what happens in the decades between now and 2050 being really important um methane is actually quite relevant to that because unlike carbon dioxide which once you've emitted it sort of sits in the atmosphere for centuries and just accumulates and continues having its effect um methane kind of goes away once you've emitted it within about a decade and so if we make these cuts that they pledge then what you do is buy yourself quite a lot of time i mean quite a lot it's probably generous but you buy yourself some time in the harder work of cutting co2 emissions because once we sort of make those cuts the methane that's already in the atmosphere which is really really potent even though there's less of it um will start to dissipate and that can kind of buy us a bit of time um you know like everything else in this these are voluntary pledges we'll see how they're met again you know the the dirty word that no one wants to say is you know also fuel production they talk about methane from agriculture and you know land use changes but a huge amount of it is just producing natural gas or fossil gas which a lot of countries are still advocating as like a clean bridge fuel which is a complete falsehood um and so unless we're doing away with that process you're still going to have a lot of methane emissions um and then on the deforestation you know the nice thing about trees is that it's hard to disagree that we should stop cutting down trees so it's much less contentious than something like ending fossil fuels um but the trouble with this is you know it's it's great I'd love to see it um again it's all voluntary there's no kind of mechanism for how it will be carried out what will happen if countries don't meet that pledge and you know we've seen very similar pledges before so uh in 2014 we had an agreement out of New York um that basically said we would have deforestation by 2020 and halted by 2030 um you know check in at 2020 and it had gone up since that point um and that didn't even really cause much of a stir so you know it's hard to know whether that will actually be met um but it's great you know to see again it will come down to something that people don't want to talk about which is you know what is the root cause of deforestation in the first place and it's industrial agriculture it's you know production in the fossil fuel industry it's massive inequality in the global economy which means that you know people in the global north are consuming so much more um than our kind of fair share and those are kind of the sticky issues that no one wants to talk about um but yes at the end of the day I think we can take a little comfort that people want to protect the trees I really like the nice thing about trees it's the beginning of a sentence everybody likes trees everyone does like trees I don't want them to be cut down um unless you're a sustainable carpenter like that guy from insulate Britain who grows them after he chops them down um Adrian thank you so much for for making sense of announcements over the past 48 hours from COP26 very insightful as always um we're gonna go on to our final story I'm told Owen Patterson um so the topic of our of the first half of our show has told Sky he wouldn't hesitate to act in the same manner tomorrow after being criticized by a standards body for breaching lobbying rules he said no question he would act the same again the background there is Owen Patterson is trying to claim that he was actually acting in the public interest because he was trying to meet up with with various government agencies to point out I think it was a sort of a danger with milk and certain things that he thought it would be in the public interest for them to know what he also did though was was when he spoke to those agencies he spoke very very positively about companies he was being employed by so if he were being an honest guy he would say oh if I were to do this tomorrow I think that it was so in the public interest that I would do it again but what I would do is I'd give up that a hundred thousand pounds they give me every year because ultimately I don't need it anyway but that's that's not what he's he said if what he wanted to be was a whistleblower talking about the safety of milk he could have done that without being paid a hundred thousand pounds a year let's go to our final story of the evening we've always known Boris Johnson doesn't like scrutiny more recently Dominic Cummings revealed he is especially hostile to scrutiny from women both of those features of the prime minister were on show in an interview Boris Johnson gave a cop 26 to CNN's Christiane Amanpour do you want to answer what's going around on social media you brought up the national treasure Sir David Attenborough and there you all were in the plenary he's 95 years old he was wearing masks and you weren't it's all over the place right I you weren't wearing a mask yesterday sitting next to 95 year old national treasure David Attenborough I've been I've been you know wearing a mask when in confined spaces with people that I don't normally meet and I think it's up to people to take a judgment about whether they're whether they're you know at a reasonable distance from from someone and whether they're with someone they don't normally meet that's what that's what that's the approach we take the way she twiddled you know her farm as well she was skewering Boris Johnson it was really the height of camp also just repeating it over and over again 95 year old national treasure David Attenborough who you sat next to without any mask you mean 95 year old national treasure David Attenborough who you sat sat next to with no mask obviously I mean it is talking about the substance of this beyond the fact that as I say Boris Johnson really didn't like being scrutinized by a woman live on TV it is kind of wild isn't it sitting next to 95 old national treasure David Attenborough without a mask on because the important thing here is David Attenborough is wearing a mask right so if David Attenborough hadn't been wearing a mask and it just seemed like you know there were four people there none of them were that fussed they all felt relatively secure I've been to many a place where no one's wearing a mask pubs nightclubs etc I'm not saying no one should ever hang out close to someone without a mask on but if you're next to someone who is more vulnerable than yourself so David Attenborough at 95 is more vulnerable than Boris Johnson and they are wearing a mask so they're clearly someone who is concerned about COVID-19 then not wearing a mask yourself you know you might say it's reckless more than that I think it's just rude right it's really rude if you are next to someone who is particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 they're clearly making an effort you could make the effort and you just decide not to no I'm gonna sit here without a mask on I find it bizarre as I often say on this show I'm a creature of I'm a social animal so I often respond to people around me I wear a mask you know as on public transport where it's where it's you know mandated when I go to my corner shop the people who work there don't wear masks most of the people going there don't wear masks so often I forget to wear a mask but what I always do is if I'm surrounded by people wearing masks and especially if I'm surrounded by people wearing masks who are more vulnerable than myself I will put on a mask it's just basic decency and it is very much basic decency that Boris Johnson is just completely incapable of embodying and and he did not like it being pointed out there um let's watch another clip from that interview again you'll see Boris Johnson getting getting really peeved at the nature of the questions can I move on to COVID because yes there's a big spike in COVID in this country and it's you know the record here is worse than it is elsewhere around Europe um well I dispute that but the facts and the figures show it the again I will dispute that shall I shall I read them uh you can read whatever you like but well first of all let me I mean just let me ask you the question yeah um you have said you're going to stick to plan A which is no mandatory mask keep the vaccines going none of the social distancing or vaccine proofs that some of the other countries are doing but the NHS confederation and the British Medical Association have just come out and said plan B should be implemented now in other words masks when it's appropriating crowded places some sort of social distancing and um and and they're saying you know maybe even maybe even vaccine proof why would you not it's a very cheap and easy and people are used to to masks why why would you not do that they say they'll be potentially yet another terrible pressure on the NHS this winter well I I'm I'm watching the data the whole time we thank you we all we're all we're all looking at the the data we've got to remain very cautious we've got to remain humble in the face of the of the of nature what the disease can do at the moment we don't see any reason to deviate from the plan that we're on my favorite part that was the thank you why did he say thank you what was he what was he saying thank you for I don't know another thing I liked about that clip was how often Boris Johnson looked to the side so he was like why is this woman asking me such difficult questions I don't know who is looking at presumably some sort of advisor but the advisor wasn't going to be able to tell him that numbers weren't worse in Europe than in Britain when it comes to COVID-19 because the numbers are a hell of a lot worse in in Britain than they are in Europe so I might have got that the wrong way around she was right the interview was right I'm kind of I'm kind of regret that she didn't get the chance to read out the numbers the the case levels the death levels that are in France Spain Germany Portugal Italy compared to the UK because they are much worse in the UK than in the rest of Western Europe I mean Boris Johnson could have been referring to some Eastern European countries where the deaths are higher that's because they have quite poor vaccination rates at this point in time and you know we know Boris Johnson does like to compare himself to those countries which are doing the worst as opposed to those countries which are most similar to us in terms of income levels and in terms of vaccination rates so again a very good skewering from that CNN host what it kind of made me think is it would be good if our political interviewers in this country were less good friends with politicians because you know if Laura Coonsburg was doing that interview I just think she knows Boris Johnson too well to talk to him like that so the fact that she has potentially never met Boris Johnson before she was just looking at him like you know any other person I think that made the interview so much more effective which is why I mean there is a strong argument to have a much thicker wall between politicians and interviewers because when they're mates you just don't get that same scrutiny you don't get that level of uncomfortableness on the part of a politician who is being made to squeal it's important for scrutiny it's also just much better TV so the bosses at the BBC when you get your next political editor to make sure they are not friends with the Prime Minister or not on friendly terms with the Prime Minister at least let's go to a couple of super chats Anna with 30 pounds great show as always thank you very much for the donation free Tory councillors knocked on my door last week and I confess I called them Tory scum they just wouldn't go away so I had no choice enough love the hair Michael thank you very much for that comment Baz cams with a fiber get the vaccine 100% agree with Baz cams get the vaccine get the booster if you're entitled to one it seems like they work really god damn well we are going to wrap up the show there thanks for everyone for joining we'll be back on Friday at 7 p.m. this time with Ash Sarkar so do make sure you hit subscribe if you haven't already for now you've been watching tisky sour on the bar media good night