LONDON (AFP) — Newly installed UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Friday defended his heavily criticized decision not to attend next month's COP27 climate change summit, saying he had to focus on "pressing" economic problems.

In an interview with Sky News a day after Downing Street announced he was skipping the summit, the prime minister stressed he was "very personally committed" to environmental issues.

"I just think at the moment it's right that I'm also focusing on the pressing domestic challenges we have with the economy, and I think that's what people watching would reasonably expect me to be doing as well," Sunak said.

The COP27 UN climate change conference takes place in Egypt on 7 to 8 November, two weeks after Sunak became prime minister.

Opposition Labor party leader Keir Starmer attacked the Tory leader's decision to "shun" the event, while Green Party leader Caroline Lucas said that Sunak's absence was a "shameful way to end the UK's COP Presidency".

The UK hosted the previous summit, COP26, in Glasgow in Scotland in 2021, with British politician Alok Sharma serving as president.

Really proud

Sunak said the UK should be "really proud of how we're doing" as "one of the countries that has decarbonized the fastest."

Downing Street confirmed Friday that King Charles III, who has long taken a keen interest in environmental issues, will not be going to the summit either.

Meanwhile, the UK government said it will call elections in Northern Ireland within 12 weeks, the second time since May.

The announcement came after UK and local lawmakers failed to resolve a standoff over post-Brexit trade rules.

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris confirmed that talks with the UK province's fractious political parties had not yielded a breakthrough ahead of a Friday deadline to resume a power-sharing devolved government.

No other option

Heaton-Harris added he had met local election officials "to discuss operational considerations to inform (them of) my decision about the election date," while telling reporters that he would say more next week.

The UK minister noted that political parties in Belfast were opposed to holding a second election in less than a year, but insisted that he had been left with no other option.

The province has been without a devolved government for nine months, after the pro-UK Democratic Unionist Party collapsed power-sharing in February over its trenchant opposition to the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol governing post-Brexit trade rules.

It wants the pact, which effectively keeps Northern Ireland in the European Union's single market and customs union, overhauled or scrapped entirely.

DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson has defended his party's stance, arguing the protocol "harms our economy, harms our people and prevents us getting access to medicines and other vital supplies."