Eco circus lacks big top players
BORIS Johnson will be the ringmaster at a circus of the bizarre next week.The Prime Minister welcomes the global green elite to Glasgow for the COP26 United Nations climate change summit on Monday.
For the next fortnight, sobersuited world leaders and diplomats will mingle with costumed activists and performance artists among wacky sculptures and art installations on the banks of the Clyde.
British taxpayers will pick up the £100million bill for the gathering.
Veterans of the COP roadshow, which has been touring since Berlin back in 1995, describe the event as a “summit like no other”.
UN-sanctioned eco-warriors are permitted to stage noisy and colourful stunts each day in a “Blue Zone” area within the official ring of steel in the hope politicians sign up to targets for curbing greenhouse gases. Musicians, poets and drama groups will be trooped in to drum up a carnival atmosphere while Greta Thunberg and Barack Obama add some green stardust.
SUCH theatrics should provide a perfect setting for Mr Johnson’s Greatest Showman act. Yet the PM has admitted to being worried that the summit will fail to secure an international commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050.
Chinese and Russian presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are not attending and sending functionaries in their place. Indian prime minister Narendra Modi is coming but wants to slow the pace of the charge towards net zero.
Other leaders attending the summit are reluctant to sign up to targets that will significantly raise the cost of living for their populations.
One Tory MP observing the summit build-up said: “The big chiefs from the most polluting countries don’t seem to want to turn up at all.
“It will start with a lot of grand ideals then run into some stagemanaged deadlock before a bland statement is released at the 11th hour.” Downing Street sources say the outcome of COP26 is “hanging in the balance”. Mr Johnson’s MPs are hardly cheering him on.
Craig Mackinlay, leader of the Net Zero Scrutiny group of Tories sceptical about many of the environmental lobby demands, said: “From the point of view of the British taxpayer, who will bear the cost of much of this greenwash, I don’t wish COP26 much success.
“Given the lack of enthusiasm by the big CO2 emitters, I don’t think I’m going to be disappointed.”
former Cabinet minister told me: “A Conservative government should be setting a broad framework to encourage the switch to cleaner technology and then stand back and let the market drive change.”
MANY MPs are uncomfortable about COP26 taking place against a backdrop of global fuel shortages and spiralling energy bills. Another backbencher said: “My hope is we can get through this, see what happens and perhaps get our feet back on the ground and look at the reality of the energy security implications, affordability and practicality of many of these green plans.”
MPs sceptical about the dash for net zero were heartened by the lack of new green announcements in Rishi Sunak’s Budget last Wednesday.They suspect it is a sign that the Government’s noisy eco rhetoric will fade once the COP26 circus leaves town.