Thank you to Minister Koizumi and the Government of Japan for organising this Platform.

To tackle the climate crisis, governments around the world must come together, as we are doing today.

To learn. To unite behind common causes. And to encourage each other to make the most of the opportunities ahead.

We all know that the coronavirus pandemic has caused terrible harm – both human and economic.

But the recovery is a chance for all of us to build back better. To create clean jobs. And to place green growth at the heart of our economies.

That is what we are doing here in the UK.

Since March, we have put the equivalent of 450 million US Dollars into cutting emissions in heavy industry.

And almost US$1.3 billion driving the move to low-emissions vehicles.

We are confident in this approach to our recovery because we know it works.

Over the past 30 years we have grown our economy by 75% whilst cutting emissions by 43%.

Creating thousands of jobs in new industries in the process.

Our offshore wind capacity is now the largest in the world.

Employing thousands of people directly, and through supply chains.

And the price of offshore wind energy has fallen by two-thirds between 2015 and 2019.

Renewables are now cheaper than new coal and gas power plants in 2 thirds of countries.

As a result, we can say with confidence that the UK will meet its ambition to phase out coal power by 2024.

And from April to June this year we went 67 days without coal.

There are immense opportunities for those developing the technologies the world needs to move to its low-carbon future.

For example, Europe’s electric vehicle market grew by almost 50% between 2018 and 2019.

And, globally, renewables are expected to attract 77% of all investment in electricity systems between now and 2050 – worth around US$10 trillion.

There has never been a better time to invest in the green economy. Or a more important time.

To limit warming to 1.5 degrees, we need to halve global emissions over the next decade.

But we are not currently on track to do so.

People are suffering now as a result of our changing climate. And the window of time we have to act is closing fast.

As incoming COP26 President, the UK believes in bringing together countries across the world, to make progress faster.

We all need to focus on critical areas: clean energy, clean transport, nature-based solutions, adaptation and resilience, and finance.

We need all countries to submit more ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions, driving further cuts in carbon emissions by 2030.

And we need all nations to commit to reaching net zero emissions as soon as possible. As we have done in the UK – we will be net zero by 2050.

Ladies and gentlemen. We are at a critical moment for the world’s climate.

To limit temperature rises, we must take this chance and unite behind a clean, resilient global recovery.

I want to start by thanking Minister Koizumi for organising this really remarkable discussion, and I’d also like to thank all the other participants as well.

This event has demonstrated the passion that we all share for meeting our Paris goals, and the benefits of coming together, sharing our experiences, and working towards a common purpose.

This all gives me and the UK great confidence for COP26 next year.

We can all see that, as we recover from the coronavirus pandemic, we have a huge opportunity to build back better – to build our recovery on a fairer, greener, cleaner, and more resilient economy.

And that is the agenda that we will be putting at the heart of our COP26 Presidency next year.

The COP President Designate outlined our progress to date on clean growth in his remarks, so I would like to focus on what comes next.

In the UK, there are almost half a million jobs in low carbon businesses and their supply chains, and there is a real potential to use our recovery to create more jobs in this area.

So in the Summer Economic Statement, our Chancellor announced £3 billion to support measures to reduce greenhouse emissions from buildings, supporting as many as 140,000 green jobs.

We’re committed to spending more than £2 billion to the industrial sector over eight years to help them reduce their emissions and energy bills.

And we are committing hundreds of millions of pounds to developing new technologies to help to decarbonise older processes:

We’re interested in developing Direct Air Capture, which takes CO2 emissions immediately out of the air around us.

We’re committed also to Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage, which we aim to start deploying by the middle of this decade, and we want to be able to share our findings and collaborate with other partners and friends across the world.

Projects like these allow us to rapidly move towards a decarbonised economy, as is vital to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, and I think also all of this work can pave the way for ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in the fight against climate change.

That is our priority for our COVID recovery, and the vision behind our economic policies and the COP Presidency which we very much look forward to next year.

So I am delighted to have heard similar examples from so many countries today.

It is vitally important that all our nation’s build on the ideas we are sharing today, and we challenge ourselves to submit more ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions and Long Term Strategies that set the path to net zero, ahead of COP26.

The UK has committed in law to being net zero by 2050, and I hope other nations can join us on this journey and make a similar commitment.

Thank you once again Minister Koizumi for this excellent forum, for bringing all of this together, and I look forward to supporting all of your efforts as participants ahead of COP26 next year. I hope we can all work together as we are doing for an ambitious and clean recovery. Thank you very much.