The Cabinet Minister was laughing.
They decided that everyone who attends COP26 had to be driven around by an electric car.
But so many people are coming they’ve realized they haven’t enough charging points.
So they’ve been scrambling to find diesel generators to help boost the capacity.’
A second Cabinet Minister was struggling to find the funny side.
I’m sick of it. Every time I do a speech, they try to slide some more COP nonsense into it.
Something about telling people to do less washing-up, or eat less meat. It’s ridiculous.’
A third Cabinet Minister was simply resigned: ‘COP’s turning into a circus. No 10 are trying to get a grip but it’s spiraling out of control.
They’re saying to foreign governments, ‘Can you keep the size of your delegations to a minimum?’ And they’ll be told, ‘OK, we’ll keep it down to 1,500 people.’ ‘
The UN Climate Change Conference, which opens in Glasgow on Sunday, is supposed to be the event that saves the planet.
But ask anyone in government and they’ll tell you the truth.
It’s a farce. It’s degenerating into chaos. And to many, the best thing for the environment would be if Boris Johnson, right, just bit the bullet and scrapped it.
The whole purpose of COP26 was meant to promote global environmental sustainability.
Instead, it is being turned into a catwalk for the green showboating of the global elite.
Or, in the case of Japan, show-planeing. Last week it emerged that a specially configured Boeing 777 had been flown 6,000 miles (without passengers) solely to see whether the pilots would prefer to use Prestwick or Edinburgh airports when the official Japanese delegation arrives.
It’s also been announced that when the runway of choice has been chosen, special measures will be put in place to ensure arriving dignitaries can be whisked speedily to their destinations.
Unfortunately, COP26 has become so bloated that nearby roads will become gridlocked, so leaders will be ferried to their hotels along the Clyde Expressway, which has been turned into a VIP lane.
I understand the COP26 PR team, conscious of the questionable ‘optics’ developing around this orgy of pro-environmentalism had hoped for some events to show global leaders utilizing public transport.
But the opportunities are shrinking.
The Unite union, with a commendable eye to the main chance, has announced that more than 1,300 bus workers will use the conference to go on strike over pay.
If you think all this unfolding chaos is shaping up to be bad news for the planet, then spare a thought for the real victims: COP26’s corporate sponsors.
Veteran tree-huggers NatWest, Microsoft, and Jaguar are among companies that have reportedly written to the Government condemning ‘mismanagement’ by the ‘very inexperienced civil servants’ organizing the event.
But, painful though it is to see the opportunity for some greenwashed product placement disappearing in a cloud of jet and motorcade fumes, what were those sponsors expecting?
Who in their right mind would hold such a vital summit in the midst of a deadly pandemic?
As one Minister told me: ‘People think COP is going to last three weeks. But it’s been going on for over a year. And we’ve been trying to deal with something else quite big during that period.’
Covid’s shadow over COP26 was always going to be too long and dark. Vladimir Putin, who has been forced to announce a workplace shutdown across Russia to try to get on top of a surge in cases, isn’t attending.
Neither, it appears, will President Xi of China.
Last week, China’s economic recovery was thrown into reverse as the economic Covid aftershocks continue to reverberate.
And Joe Biden has had to tear up his original COP26 strategy as he struggles to manage America’s surge in virus cases and force his own ‘Build Back Better’ budget through the Senate.
Meanwhile, there are disturbing signs here that Boris is about to fall heavily between two Covid and COP26 stools.
Rishi Sunak is tearing his hair out trying to work out how to align the Prime Minister’s multi-billion-pound net-zero commitment with his need to tackle the £2.2 trillion Covid debt mountain.
At the same time, Ministers are expressing concern that as Boris’s notoriously fickle attention has drifted towards Glasgow, there has been an insufficient focus at No 10 on the vaccine booster rollout.
The argument within the government is that the climate crisis cannot wait. Having been put back once by Covid, COP26 had to go ahead to refocus attention on another, potentially even more apocalyptic global emergency.
But the opposite is going to happen. Rather than emphasize their stewardship of the environment, world leaders are again going to reveal just how detached they are.
Pressing ahead with COP26 while the globe is still struggling to contain Covid is the equivalent of forcing someone back into a burning building to carry on removing the asbestos.
Yes, the threat from global warming represents a real and present danger. But this morning, Covid and its economic impact are a more imperative one.
In order to tackle environmental challenges, people are going to be asked to make significant sacrifices.
And that will involve politicians – and the burgeoning green lobby and their sponsors – taking public opinion with them.
But instead of showing families that they have a plan for saving their planet, our leaders again seem intent on giving the impression they reside on an entirely different one.
COP26 is about to replace Davos as the event that most gratuitously frames the arrogance, hypocrisy, and entitlement of the global ruling class.
Their gigantic jets will descend upon Prestwick.
And they will alight and tell us how we each need to reduce our global environmental footprint.
Their motorcades will speed along their exclusive expressway.
And they will get out, then inform us we have to do our bit by walking our kids to school. They will assemble for their plush banquet.
And after dessert and coffee, they’ll retire to put the finishing touches on speeches that lecture us about eating sustainably.
Worst of all, they think no one will notice their green doublespeak.
That this grotesque ‘do as I say, not as I do’ grandstanding will pass everyone by amid a kaleidoscope of polar bears, Greta Thunberg, and homilies about our grandchildren.
Which might actually be the optimum outcome.
The best that the organizers of COP26 can hope for now is that as many people as possible ignore them.
That those concerned about where the next booster jab is coming from, or how they will cope with soaring fuel prices, will blink and miss this UN imitation of The Fyre Festival.
Because if they don’t, those same people aren’t going to be happy.
As I’ve written before, a dangerous disconnect is opening up.
Between those who believe that everyone has bought into their liberal, environmental consensus and those who want a recognition that we live in a complex world of competing priorities, not all of which revolve around the level of carbon emissions in 2050.
Anyone doubting this should have a word with the Insulate Britain protester who recently ended up tied by irate motorists to a railing with his own banner.
It’s very late in the day. But the best way of saving COP26 – and the planet – is to cancel it.
h/t RO
Read more at Daily Mail
So these arrogant SOB’s are going to tell us how to save the planet, which by the way is around 4.5 billion years old. The Sun which keeps us warm and alive is around 8 billion years old and all the other planets in our solar system are a similar age to our little blue planet.
Now I want to know what we little humans can do to “save” our planet knowing it has already survived for 4.5 billion years? What makes some people think earth needs saving and what is it to be saved from?
Being a realist (that’s me) earth has two really big potential problems. The biggest is a collision with a really big asteroid. You know, one of those rocks that came for “up there” and wiped out the dinosaurs. I read the other day that we are practicing ways to divert one of these rocks if one was to come our way. Now that’s good stuff and would save us and earth if a big rock happens to come into our neighbourhood.
The other problem – I’ll divide into two parts because they are survival related events. (1) War between the US and China. (2) The coming Ice Age.
Dealing with (1) we humans need to grow up. We have evolved into being very clever and now live comfortably compared to our ancestors who roamed around all day just looking for something to eat, then at night had to avoid being eaten themselves.. We are talking hundred’s of thousands of years to get to where we are today yet we still spend a lot of time (and money on equipment) wanting to kill each other. We need to remember that “cooperation” is the only way we humans have survived and that’s what we must do to continue to survive and thrive, so what’s wrong with us? It seems we have forgotten our history.
Facing up to (2) could fix (1) because if the cycles of the Sun are a guide, we are heading into some really cold weather. Keeping 8 billion people warm and fed will be our main concerns by then, not CO2 in the atmosphere or fighting to kill each other. The cold will do its share of that!!
The people attending this COP26 gabfest should change the reason for their gathering. They should think about how to protect people’s lives if the average temperature drops 15 degrees C and a lot our crops failed because it’s too cold and they don’t grow. Also, where is the energy to come from to heat homes so people don’t freeze to death in their beds at night? I’m really puzzled because the early winter in the northern hemisphere and low fuel reserves doesn’t seem to register with these people.
BTW – when its cold, there is usually a lot more cloud in the sky and the wind is doing what the wind always does, so electricity will be in short supply from windmills and shiny mirrors, most of which will be ice bound or covered in snow.
We should be focusing on “real” problems, not ones that we imagine. 🙂
Boris just publicly peed his pants by suggesting, to an audience of children, that people could be fed to animals in order to rebalance nature. Yep, he’s a world leader.
As for the rest of them, may I suggest that they land their jumbo jets at Prestwick, on the Postage Stamp, like lawn darts.
And when al those who attend the event wont be coming on Magic Carpets they wont be flapping their arms real fast and their not be using FAITH and TRUST and PIXIE DUST their going to be using Private Jets be driven there in Limos and stay and hold their little Pow-Wows in Secure Buildings and leave behind a realy large Carbon Footprint