London: Greenpeace on Wednesday said the British government had “lied to the public” after leaked emails seen by the environmental group appeared to show backtracking on climate commitments to secure a trade deal with Australia.

In the correspondence, Greenpeace UK said senior ministers Liz Truss, David Frost and Kwasi Kwarteng “are named as agreeing to ditch references to the temperature commitments in the Paris Agreement on climate in order to get the Australian trade deal ‘over the line’.”

In response, the government insisted it “will not sign trade deals that compromise our high environmental protections”.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote to environmental NGOs promising that any deal with Australia would “include a chapter on trade and environment which not only reaffirms commitments to multilateral environmental agreements, including the Paris Agreement, but also commits both parties to collaborate on climate and environmental issues.” But Greenpeace said “details from the leaked email demonstrate that what Boris Johnson wrote in that letter was a lie”.

UK, Australia agree post-Brexit free trade deal

“The reality of the government’s plans to bulldoze over the Paris Agreement temperature commitments... completely undermines trust in the government as host of the upcoming UN climate summit, COP26,” it added.

The 12-day event is due to be held in Glasgow in November, and is seen as a crucial step in global action to set new emissions targets to prevent runaway climate change. Australia, however, has refused to adopt a net-zero emissions target and remains one of the world’s largest fossil fuel exporters.

The government maintained that all the deals it was pursuing “have committed to securing provisions that will help trade in low carbon goods and services, support research and development, innovation in green sectors, and maintain our right to regulate in pursuit of decarbonisation.”