COP26 is no flop

Many types of hell were on offer at the COP26 Summit in Glasgow this week. The headline inferno is the prospect of the world heating to catastrophic levels for all of us. 

Next comes the hell of good intentions – national leaders pledging to take measures to curb climate change which they know are either hot air, non-binding or most unlikely to be delivered. 

Then there’s the practical hell of bringing leaders and high representatives of 193 United Nations together in Glasgow in November, along with many thousands of aides, security people, campaigners, experts, lobbyists, corporate representatives, journalists and protesters.

Many onlookers would agree with the Daily Mail columnist Sarah Vine that COP26 “seems to encapsulate the insanity, vanity and vacuousness of the modern world perfectly”. 

Having been at COP for three days last week and heading back for two more days by the slowish trains to Scotland next week, I beg to differ. 

This COP meeting undoubtedly manifests many of the absurdities of a contemporary Tower of Babel, but it is not vacuous. Whether it ends in boastful success or recriminations between countries at some point next weekend, the event and the expense will still have been worthwhile. 

The madness first. It was difficult to feel charitable about the enterprise when queuing for 45 minutes at seven am, just to get access to the complex through the security checks. 

There we stood in zigzag lines in a large and packed Covid-superspreader event in a plastic marquee while wearing a mandatory mask and being barked at by the guards in hi-vis jackets for taking pictures of the crowd to post on social media. 

All this followed an obligatory PCR test at daybreak, and a long trudge down cordoned off concrete streets. Inside the Hydro Centre, at last, a single glance below the giant globe suspended above the throng could take in several people dressed as Native Americans (the type often contrasted with cowboys), a monk, a man in a bowler hat, Al Gore, John Kerry and the Archbishop of Canterbury. 

Even Greta Thunberg, who has been spending most of her time outside with demonstrators, materialised briefly on a balcony for a selfie with Nicola Sturgeon.

This Vanity Fair turned to insult for one environment minister. The well-choreographed opening session of “the Leaders Summit” included a contribution from a man representing the disabled, one-third of humanity, he said. But Karine Elharrar, an Israeli delegate, found out the hard way that there was no wheelchair access to COP26. She spent two hours outside in the cold before going back to her hotel. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett threatened to boycott the summit until a way to get her into the meeting was found the following day. 

It would be nice if the rest of the world could adopt Israeli-style smart screening whereby only those who seem suspicious are detained, but I’ve yet to experience it outside Ben Gurion airport and El Al. 

Reporters and officials who had already had to make multiple applications to be accredited can’t have posed much of a terror threat. Just recently, the crashing of the turnstiles at the Euro football final and the killing of Sir David Amess MP have reminded us that there is a threat out there. Subjecting everyone to dumb security and searches has become the default imposition in the rest of the world. 

Then there is the hypocrisy of the leaders, using limousines and private jets and in some cases – such as you, Boris Johnson – not wearing masks in confined spaces even when sitting next to 95-year-old National Treasure Sir David Attenborough. 

All very irritating, especially when the PM boards his private jet to fly back to London for a dinner organised by the Daily Telegraph. On the other hand, if they were all forced to take public transport and fly commercial the disruption to every other traveller would be far worse. 

It is easy to get annoyed by the “Masters of the Universe” vibe as corporate bosses and billionaires such as Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos preen on first name terms with presidents and prime ministers. Yet their mutual stoking of self-satisfaction is a small price to pay as showing off urges them on to make bigger commitments. 

Celebrity politics are a phenomenon of our age. Glasgow witnessed a concerted effort to join the club by the heirs to the British Throne. Prince Charles and Prince William seized the opportunity to be seen to be doing something useful, although they were eclipsed by the monarch, Elizabeth II, joining by video to contemplate her own and our planets mortality.

Those publicly patronised by the self-selecting great and good for their efforts and inventions seemed pleased by the recognition.

Sir David Attenborough earned a standing ovation for his dark but ultimately optimistic pep talk. His mantel of concerned science guru to the nation is passing to the mop-topped astrophysicist Professor Brian Cox.

Cox is simultaneously more cuddly and more forbidding than Attenborough. His contribution was limited to a short voiceover of a film in the style of his current TV series Universe. He got over his main themes without hesitation, that scientific probability that Earth may be the only place in the universe where life is found and that its most intelligent and conscious species, us, could yet blow it for all (if we haven’t passed the point of no return already).

What of the commitments made? It is unlikely that any of them would have been made so explicitly if “world leaders” had not had the chance to parade at COP’s quinquennial jamboree. While few of them are binding or enforceable, the most vital issues to containing global warming were thrust into the spotlight including deforestation, Methane emissions, coal, fossil fuels, and finance transfers. 

Many of the biggest transgressors refused to sign up on the most crucial challenges they face, such as Australia and China on pollution. Others made declarations but still found get outs – such as the UK on developing the Campo Oil field and the Cumbria coal mine. But all these failings have now been exposed to the world, and the pressure to address them will be unrelenting. 

After Glasgow, there will still be a massive gap between the compensation payments the emerging economies are demanding and what the industrialised nations are prepared to give. Nor are political leaders yet prepared to admit to their voters that hardship and sacrifice are inevitable if this man-made threat is to be overcome. These problems too have been highlighted on the global agenda by the meeting.

Greta Thunberg whose maturing into a sweary teenager has been wittily compared to the metamorphosis of Hannah Montana into twerking Miley Cyrus, briefly left the protests to come inside and concede that some progress had been made. 

According to the latest news from the International Atomic Agency, if, big if, all the pledges made in Glasgow are honoured, the projected temperature rise will fall from 2.7 degrees centigrade to 1.8 degrees. That is not quite the 1.5 degrees they signed up to in Paris more than five years ago, but it is still significant. 

As Mephistophalis admitted to the nature-transgressing Dr Faustus, “Why this is hell, nor am I out of it”. At least chaotic COP26 in Glasgow will move us closer to finding an exit.