In November 30,000 delegates from across the world will descend on Glasgow’s spectacular Events Campus for 12 days, to attend the United Nations 26th Climate Conference. I qualify “from across the world” given the last one two years ago in Madrid had delegates from a mere 15 countries.
Depending on the degree of room sharing and with Edinburgh a 40 minute commute away, they will fit in.
This is good news for the city’s hotel business after the Covid crisis’s devastating impact on tourism. Glasgow normally receives circa 2 million visitors annually, with architectural tours being the main attraction.
But what will they do?
As with all conferences, nothing, other than listening to speeches and passing resolutions.
Those speeches could easily be supplied to delegates in written form without the need to travel.
The one common characteristic all the delegates will share is that someone else, namely taxpayers, will be paying for this jaunt. I have a home there and could offer to put on a cocktail party for any delegate paying their own way and suspect it would be a very quiet function.
13 Comments
As usual, lets have a ‘grand ol gathering’ where we all need to fly, drive rental cars, consume banquet volumes of food and figure out how we can pressure the third world into using solar panels instead of burning cow dung to heat their one meal a day! Not in the least bit surprising considering someone else is footing the bill. Could you imagine how popular zoom conferences would become if they had to foot the bill themselves!
I’m on standby with passport at hand. When can I pick up my ticket.
The most ironic part is that all these “Saviours of the world” will be winging in on great gas guzzling jumbo jets etc, thus adding to the carbon dioxide and other pollutants that they tell us that we are destroying the eco syrtem with. Have they not heard of the internet etc?
So it is really a “Do as we say, not as we do” conference, exactly what we expect from thes yapping hipocrates.
I wonder if Climate Change Minister, James Shaw, will attend? He loves taxpayer-funded long-haul air travel. Don’t worry about the emissions James enjoy yourself and don’t overdo it.
The trouble is they will plant another trrrand think they have fixed the problem. Bloody hypocrites the lot of them
Tree
The money for their freebe talkfest will be nothing compared with the money they will be demanding for their carbon fantasies.
Imagine all the emissions they are putting into the atmosphere via all the air travel and motor cars getting to and from the venue . Their motto should be “
“ Emission reductions are for everyone else but us delegates”
One can only speculate on the amount of emissions and pollution caused by having 30,000 delegates attend, regardless of who’s footing the bill. I don’t just mean the travel of course – the amount of hot air from the speeches, and the levels of methane from the copious amounts of bullshit that will be spouted, may well cause the planet to reach tipping point earlier, and the 12 years that St Greta has lectured us we have left before the planet “dies” might become only 10!
Just another junket…to keep the chosen few happy…and expensive hotels full…
I remember talking to Tim Shadbolt about one of the junkets he went on to secure some overseas students. In deed, this had more merit, but admitted he might have got abit carried away.
Apparently they have tighten the controls since…..
The surprise is really that there doesn’t seem to be any kind of major “events” coincidentally going on. I always assumed these junkets were timed to start when the World Cup/Football/Olympics (choose an event) were gearing up. Colour me cynical!
I once attended a training seminar as required – voluntarily – to keep upto speed with the requirements of my profession. I didn’t go down well with one of the organisers when I told them the truth. That I could have just as easily stayed home and read the manual because that’s largely what the presenters did – they read from the manual.
An interesting post on forthcoming COP26 in November 2021. Thank you 😊