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02nd Nov 2021

Boris Johnson compares climate change talks to footballing comeback

Callum Boyle

In one metaphor, Boris Johnson has proved he understands neither football nor climate change

Boris Johnson praised talks from the first two days at Cop26 and compared it from coming back from ‘5-1 down’ to pulling ‘back a goal, or perhaps even two’ and said that they could ‘take this thing to extra time.’

The prime minister was speaking during the talks on climate change in Glasgow, where nearly 100 countries have signed a pledge to cut their methane emissions by 30 per cent by the end of the decade.

But instead of trying to update the public in a normal fashion, he – as usual – tried and failed to be funny, showing how bad his knowledge of football, and climate change, actually is.

In a live broadcast, Johnson said: “If this was a football match, the current score would be 5-1 down in the match between humanity and climate change,” but in the last few days, “we’ve pulled back a goal, or perhaps even two, and I think we’re going to be able to take this thing to extra time.”

It remains to be seen whether he had a momentary lapse of memory when it came to his football knowledge (we doubt it) or he’s just genuinely incapable of understanding the rules, but even the most ignorant about football would be able to tell you that his analogy doesn’t work.

Just to clarify, what Johnson doesn’t realise is that even if the world has metaphorically pulled one – maybe two or three – goals back, that wouldn’t be enough to take it to extra-time. At the moment, it’s nothing more than a consolation and damage limitation.

Plenty of people didn’t take to his comments warmly either, with many pointing out that on more than one occasion he has denied the concept of climate change, using their own football analogies to expose Johnson.

One user said: “Abysmal. Let’s extend your metaphor a bit further, you daft w****r: If this was a football match with climate change, the 5 goals were own goals, 2 of which were scored by your own damn government. Useless f*****g a*****e.”

Another user then said: “BoJo scores another own goal & the game is as good as lost.”

One user pointed out that having a meeting around a table isn’t going to solve climate change on its own and compared it to a club who have been a major talking point of late.

They said: “You can’t fight climate change with a meeting Boris…,and climate change is not Manchester United.”

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