There’s been a mini reshuffle this evening. Alok Sharma has become the full-time head of COP26, the UN climate change summit the UK is hosting in Glasgow this November, and Kwasi Kwarteng has replaced him as Business Secretary. Sharma will continue to be a full member of the Cabinet. Anne-Marie Trevelyan, who was Secretary of State for International Development until the department was merged with the Foreign Office, takes on Kwarteng’s old job as Minister of State for energy.
The decision to make Sharma the full-time president of COP26 is a recognition that it simply isn’t possible to do the job while trying to hold down another position. A huge amount of diplomatic legwork is going to have to go into this summit, which with the election of Joe Biden has a good chance of making progress, and Sharma couldn’t do that while also dealing with the fallout from Covid.
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