Energy Secretary racking up 24,000 air miles between Britain and Cop30

Ed Miliband is making two identical 12,000-mile round trips to attend the UN climate summit in Brazil.

The Energy Secretary joined world leaders in Belem last week for the Cop30 conference but has since returned to the UK. The Telegraph has the story.

Yet the former Labour leader, 55, who recently warned that the British way of life was “under threat” because of climate change, will fly back to Brazil on Saturday to continue negotiations.

The Department for Energy, Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) insisted that “any emissions from attending Cop are dwarfed by delivering our agenda,” but Tories have accused the minister of hypocrisy.

Claire Coutinho, the shadow Energy Secretary, told the Daily Mail: “It is beyond parody that Ed Miliband is flying halfway across the world and back not once, but twice, all while lecturing the rest of us in the name of saving the planet.

“While Ed jets off again to the forest-thinning climate jamboree in Brazil, closer to home it’s ordinary Brits who are suffering thanks to his policies, which are pushing up everyone’s energy bills.”

The newspaper reported that Mr Miliband’s four-leg plane journeys are costing the taxpayer an estimated £22,000 and creating around six tons of CO2 emissions.

At the conference last week, where he was joined by Sir Keir Starmer and the Prince of Wales, Mr Miliband called for further action to tackle climate change.

“The world is moving on climate and clean energy, but it needs to move faster,” he told The Times.

He added: “The action and the atmosphere at this summit, in my view, already demonstrates that the doubters are wrong. The vast majority of the world continues to act on clean energy.”

Read the full story here.