Sir Alok Kumar Sharmais a British Conservative Party politician who served as President for COP26 from 2021 to 2022, having previously served as Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy from 2020 to 2021 and Secretary of State for International Development from 2019 to 2020. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Reading West since 2010.
Sharma served in Theresa May's government as Minister of State for Housing from 2017 to 2018 and as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment from 2018 to 2019. In 2019, he was appointed to Boris Johnson's cabinet as Secretary of State for International Development.
In the 2020 cabinet reshuffle he was promoted to being Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, an office in which he served until 2021. Sharma was President of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) and negotiated the Glasgow Climate Pact.
