Xi expected to snub UK summit on climate crisis

Boris Johnson has been told that President Xi Jinping of China will not attend next month’s critical climate change conference in Glasgow amid international pessimism that the event will be successful. In a setback to the ambitions of the gathering, the prime minister has been advised by diplomats that Xi is not expected to join more than a hundred other world leaders, including President Joe Biden. British organisers fear that the decision to stay away could be a prelude to China refusing to set new climate change goals amid an energy crunch. All countries are expected to publish new climate change targets, known as nationally defined contributions, beforehand. Yet with the conference two weeks away, only half the G20 countries, including the world’s largest emitters, have put forward their plans.