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Ed Miliband will fly to Brazil twice to attend a climate change conference, racking up 24,000 air miles. The Energy Secretary has returned to the UK after his initial trip to the Cop30 summit last week and will fly out for the next stage which starts on Saturday. It is not clear why Mr Miliband will have taken two trips to the Amazon given Parliament was in recess at the end of last week and only returns today. The Tories said he should focus on reducing people's bills rather than flying thousands of miles to spread the word on climate change. Claire Coutinho, the shadow energy secretary, said: '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.' Sir Keir Starmer flew to the summit last week to give a speech in which he vowed to go 'full speed ahead in our mission to bring about the clean power revolution'. The Prime Minister embarked on the 12,000-mile round trip to 'show UK leadership' despite the absence of other significant world leaders. Despite acknowledging that the consensus on climate change had gone, he said he wanted to show UK leadership on the issue. He acknowledged that agreement on tackling climate change has started to splinter, with many world leaders championing fossil fuels once more. US President Donald Trump has vowed to 'unleash' oil and gas drilling and has pulled out of the 2015 UN Paris Agreement to limit dangerous global warming. Reform UK has said it will junk all Net Zero rules. The Tories have said that they will abolish climate change laws to reduce people's bills. Although the world's biggest polluters are not attending the conference, Labour Mayors Sir Sadiq Khan of London and Tracy Brabin of West Yorkshire found time for the journey. Officials have so far refused to reveal how big the UK delegation to Cop is, though said numbers were 'much lower than speculated' and 'far fewer' than at the last Cop. In an interview last week, Mr Miliband insisted that pursuing a Net Zero agenda could turn the tide against right-wing populist parties. He told the Guardian that giving up on green goals would be a 'total betrayal' as he said climate was a 'strength' in the battle against the hard right. A DESNZ spokesperson said: 'The UK government is at COP30 to tackle the climate crisis and protect our way of life by working with other countries. 'That is why the Energy Secretary, alongside the Prime Minister and the Prince of Wales, attended the World Leaders Summit in Brazil last week. 'Any emissions from attending COP are dwarfed by delivering our agenda.' They said that Mr Miliband is the lead UK minister on the negotiations and will remain in contact with the team in Brazil.
