Sir Keir Starmer to attend William’s Earthshot prize in Brazil ahead of Cop30

Sir Keir Starmer will attend the ceremony of a global environmental award when he visits Brazil for a major climate summit next month.

The Prime Minister is expected to appear at the 2025 Earthshot Prize, which will be held in Rio de Janeiro this year.

Sir Keir will join the Prince of Wales – who founded the award – at the ceremony before attending the Cop30 global climate change summit in Belem, in northern Brazil near the mouth of the Amazon river.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman confirmed last week that Sir Keir would attend the major summit.

He said the move was part of efforts to restore the UK as “a global leader for climate action and green growth”, and that net zero was “the economic opportunity of the 21st century” and could “create good jobs for the future”.

Sir Keir attended last year’s Cop29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, but had been reported to be considering not travelling to Brazil for the leaders’ summit in early November this year.

The reports brought charges of “hypocrisy” from the Liberal Democrats, who pointed to Sir Keir’s criticism of Rishi Sunak over suggestions the then-prime minister would skip the 2022 summit.

Mr Sunak did eventually attend the summit in Egypt, and the following meeting in the United Arab Emirates.

The annual Cop (conference of the parties) summits bring together signatories to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to discuss efforts to halt climate change.