UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband Travels to France and Spain as Wildfires Displace Hundreds of Thousands

Ed Miliband has been moved from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to the Foreign Office, where he will take personal leadership of the United Kingdom’s development and climate agenda. In his new role as UK governor at the World Bank, Miliband pledged to keep climate a core focus of overseas aid, saying he will “play an active role in shaping the changes to the World Bank that developing countries have called for”.

On Wednesday Miliband began his first European trip as Foreign Secretary, meeting French counterpart Jean‑Noël Barrot and Spanish foreign minister José Manuel Albares. The talks are expected to cover European security, support for Ukraine, Middle‑East peace, the Gibraltar treaty, migration and, prominently, the climate emergency. Both France and Spain are battling massive wildfires that have forced the evacuation of about 360,000 people. French President Emmanuel Macron described the situation as the country’s most difficult since World War II and urged fire crews to “stay strong”. The visits aim to reinforce UK‑EU ties and demonstrate coordinated international action on the climate crisis.