This article is more than 7 months old

This article is more than 7 months old

Jeremy Corbyn has accused Boris Johnson of “failing spectacularly” to measure up to the scale of the climate crisis, after the sacked president of COP 26 revealed the UK was miles behind in getting ready for the November summit.

Speaking at prime minister’s questions, Corbyn raised the government’s failure to organise COP 26 properly, after Johnson’s team sacked Claire O’Neill as the summit’s president just days before its formal launch.

Corbyn highlighted O’Neill’s criticisms that “there has been a huge lack of leadership and engagement from this government” over the climate crisis conference.

But Johnson dismissed the attack, saying all that Corbyn would produce on tackling global heating was “a load of hot air”.

“If you look at what this government is achieving and already has achieved on climate change, it is quite phenomenal,” Johnson claimed.

The international COP 26 summit is due to take place in November in Glasgow but is without a leader after David Cameron and William Hague both turned down the vacant role of president.

Corbyn noted that two former Conservative leaders had turned down the job, joking that “maybe it could be third time lucky”, as he suggested Sir Iain Duncan Smith for the role.

Labour said its suggestion would be for Ed Miliband, the former energy secretary and ex-Labour leader, to take over the presidency as he had the experience.

Corbyn’s spokesman said: “Ed Miliband is certainly someone who has a strong record and an entirely suitable person. The issue is not exactly who should take on the role but someone with credibility.”

The Labour leader went on to criticise Johnson’s record on climate change, highlighting the comments from the prime minister that were sceptical of climate science until as recently as four years ago.

“Considering his monumental failure in advance of COP 26, isn’t it really just a continuation of his climate change denial statements that he was regularly making up until 2015?” Corbyn said.

Johnson said Corbyn was “talking absolute nonsense” and defended the government’s agenda, saying: “We lead the world in going for a zero-carbon approach. His own approach is utterly unclear and has been condemned by the GMB as a disaster for the UK economy.

“He would confiscate people’s cars and prevent them from having foreign holidays.”

Corbyn countered that the prime minister had a “very vivid imagination”, adding: “Unfortunately, his vivid imagination seems to have taken over from his memory because he might recall saying that climate change is a primitive fear without foundation.”