Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, welcoming the COP representatives to Glasgow during the opening ceremony of the World Leaders Summit. Excerpted from a UN video of the speech on Youtube and the PDF text of the speech from the website for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. (Nov. 1, 2021)

[W]e [must] make this COP 26 in Glasgow the moment when we get real about climate change, and we can. We can get real on coal, cars, cash and trees. . . . But we cannot and will not succeed by government spending alone. . . . [T]he task now is to work together to help our friends to decarbonise using . . . the funds we have in development assistance and working with all the multilateral development banks so that in the key countries that need to make progress, we can jointly identify the projects that we can help to de-risk so that the private sector money can come in . . . . [Let us] in the next days devote ourselves to this extraordinary task. So that we not only continue with . . . a green industrial revolution, that is already creating millions of high wage, high skill jobs in power and technology, taking our economies forward. Let us also do enough to save our planet and our way of life.

— Boris Johnson on Renewable energy

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "[W]e [must] make this COP 26 in Glasgow the moment when we get real about climate change, and we can. We can get real on coal, cars, cash and trees. . . . But we cannot and will not succeed by government spending alone. . . . [T]he task now is to work together to help our friends to decarbonise using . . . the funds we have in development assistance and working with all the multilateral development banks so that in the key countries that need to make progress, we can jointly identify the projects that we can help to de-risk so that the private sector money can come in . . . . [Let us] in the next days devote ourselves to this extraordinary task. So that we not only continue with . . . a green industrial revolution, that is already creating millions of high wage, high skill jobs in power and technology, taking our economies forward. Let us also do enough to save our planet and our way of life." in the context of "Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, welcoming the COP representatives to Glasgow during the opening ceremony of the World Leaders Summit. Excerpted from a UN video of the speech on Youtube and the PDF text of the speech from the website for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. (Nov. 1, 2021)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Quote Image
Source: Wikiquote: "Renewable energy" (Quotes, 2021, COP26 Climate Conference in Scotland, UK: 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (or "COP26"), held in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom from October 31st to November 13th, 2021. (The quotes below are listed in the order used in the UNFCCC's "COP 26 Speeches and statements" webpage. The quotes are from the speeches as delivered; some of the English language speeches deviate slightly from the submitted speech transcripts.)) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Boris Johnson

About Boris Johnson

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, journalist, and popular historian. He was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from July 2019 until September 2022.