Summary

Boris Johnson’s speech at the COP26 Launch begins with Johnson addressing the audience and welcoming them to the launch of COP26. 

Johnson talks about an exhibit he used to see when he was a child that looked like a carriage except without horses. It was the world’s first electric taxi, which was invented in 1897 by Walter Bersey. Johnson says Bersey was a huge fan of electric vehicles and built many in his lifetime, including an electric bus, a series of electric vans, and 75 electric taxis. 

However, Johnson says that Bersey let himself be defeated by his critics who thought he was trying to achieve something which was technologically impossible, leading him to give up. Because of this, electric taxis were gone from the streets of London for more than a century. 

Johnson says that humanity was faced with a critical decision at that time and ma...