LONDON: British international environment minister Zac Goldsmith on Friday resigned from government, criticising Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as “uninterested” in the environmental brief.

“The problem is not that the government is hostile to the environment, it is that you, our Prime Minister, are simply uninterested,” said Goldsmith, who sits in parliament’s upper chamber and held the title of Minister of State for Overseas Territories, Commonwealth, Energy, Climate and Environment.

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His resignation letter posted on Twitter said Britain had: “visibly stepped off the world stage and withdrawn our leadership on climate and nature.”

That echoes a report published earlier this week by the government’s climate advisers who said Britain had lost its position as a global leader on climate action and was not doing enough to meet its mid-century net zero target.