Boris jokes about ‘feeding humans to animals’ to baffled children as he hosts ‘Kids Lobby’ briefing

Boris Johnson joked to children that humans could be fed to animals to help the planet today.

The PM made the quip as he faced a grilling from youngsters about his environmental plans in the £2.6million Downing Street briefing room.

Facing a crowd of youngsters he made the lighthearted jest in relation to address the imbalance in nature, where humans and domesticated animals make up the vast majority of mammals on the planet.

In a more serious note he also admitted he was worried that the UN Cop26 climate conference will be a failure.

The Prime Minister will welcome world leaders to Glasgow for the summit but said it was ‘touch and go’ whether key goals would be met. 

He also lashed out at Coca Cola over plastics and said he does not ‘want to support new coal mines’, as ministers face pressure to prevent a site opening in Cumbria. 

The PM was taking questions with WWF UK’s Tanya Steele in No9 Downing Street when they faced a question about the balance of nature on Earth

Ms Steele told the children: ‘I think we need to bring nature back… Our planet, 97 per cent of the mass of mammals on this planet is humans and our animals, our domestic animals. Just 3 per cent is left for the wild.’

The Prime Minister said it was ‘so sad’ and added: ‘We could feed some of the human beings to the animals.’

Ms Steele replied: ‘We could have a vote later and ask if there’s any candidates.’

Mr Johnson also suggested that people in the future will eat more meat substitutes instead of the real thing. 

In comments that may alarm UK farmers he said: ‘I think in the future we will move away from eating as much (meat) …already science is producing meat substitutes that are basically engineered in the lab that are very like meat. 

‘And you won’t be able to tell the difference between a bio-engineered hamburger and a real hamburger. That will be the future very soon, It is already here I think.’ 

He added that science was already creating ‘polite cows’ which ‘burp less’ methane into the atmosphere. 

Mr Johnson admitted he fears the major international climate change summit he will host from Sunday could fail to make the progress needed.

The Prime Minister will welcome world leaders to Glasgow for the United Nations Cop26 summit but said it was ‘touch and go’ whether key goals would be met.

‘We need as many people as possible to go to net zero so that they are not producing too much carbon dioxide by the middle of the century,’ he said.

‘Now, I think it can be done. It’s going to be very, very tough, this summit.

‘And I’m very worried, because it might go wrong and we might not get the agreements that we need. It’s touch and go.’

Downing Street later aid Mr Johnson was setting out the ‘realistic situation’ when he presented a downbeat assessment of his chances of success at Cop26.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: ‘We have made some progress with a number of countries, Saudi Arabia has come forward with some commitments, for example.

‘But the Prime Minister was simply setting out the realistic situation that bringing together countries from around the world to sign up to ambitious targets such as these that require tangible commitments is difficult and challenging and will require some intense negotiation.’

Mr Johnson said ‘peer pressure’ at the UN summit could force some nations into action.

But with some major world leaders including China’s Xi Jinping expected to stay away due to the state of the coronavirus pandemic the chances of that tactic being a success may be limited.

Mr Johnson acknowledged ‘it’s very, very far from clear that we will get the progress that we need’ although he praised Australia for the ‘heroic’ decision to commit to net zero by 2050.

The Prime Minister, who was questioned by schoolchildren in Downing Street, hit out at Coca-Cola as being one of 12 corporations ‘producing the overwhelming bulk of the world’s plastics’.

He told a children’s press conference on the climate crisis: ‘There are about 12 companies at the moment, 12 big corporations, that are producing the overwhelming bulk of the world’s plastics.

‘Big famous drinks companies that you may know but I won’t name. I don’t know why not, but I won’t name them.’

Having said he would not name any of the firms, he then continued: ‘Coca-Cola, for instance, and others, which are responsible for producing huge quantities of plastic, and we’ve got to move away from that and we’ve got to find other ways of packaging and selling our stuff.’

Mr Johnson said recycling plastic ‘doesn’t work’ as he stressed the need to reduce the amount of the material that is used.

During a press conference at No 10 he said: ‘Recycling isn’t the answer. Recycling… it doesn’t begin to address the problem.’

He said ‘the only answer’ was ‘we’ve all got to cut down on our use of plastic’.

Appearing alongside Mr Johnson, WWF UK’s chief executive Tanya Steele said: ‘We have to reduce, we have to reuse – I do think we need to do a little bit of recycling, PM, and have some system to do so.’

But Mr Johnson replied: ‘It doesn’t work.’