COP26 has to generate change, not just hot air

THE climate summit got underway in chaotic style yesterday. Glasgow was thronged with freezing activists, queuing to get into the conference centre and with storms disrupting trains on the Euston to Glasgow line, one might have concluded a cruel joke was being played on the 30,000 attendees.

Meanwhile, a pantomime mood emerged at a nearby rally, where furious 18-year-old Greta Thunberg shouted “no more blah blah blah” at delegates.

But as the day progressed, the gravity returned. David Attenborough, 95, urged COP26 climate summit delegates to “turn tragedy into triumph” and tackle climate change. Later on it was the Queen’s turn. Rallying after hospitalisation, the monarch exhorted the assembled leaders by video link not to “pass up the opportunity” to act. As she rightly put it, “We are doing this… for our children and our children’s children, and those who will follow in their footsteps” – and most movingly, she cited her late husband Philip’s prescient speech in 1969, where he noted that if we didn’t attend to the challenge of pollution, then “all the other problems will pale into insignificance”. Look at us now.

True, there is scepticism about COP26 – the grandstanding, the emissions, the hypocrisies. But life-enhancing strategies are starting to emerge.Today Boris Johnson and Prince Charles are to lead more than 100 world leaders in a pledge to end the destruction of the world’s forests, with £8.75billion set aside to do so – the biggest international effort against deforestation to date.

They will join US President Joe Biden to sign a commitment to halt and reverse tree loss by 2030, which will help preserve these vital carbon sinks and save world forests from Colombia to Congo.

Trees absorb around one-third of the global CO2 released from burning fossil fuels every year but are still being ravaged by industrial practices.

With more than 120 world leaders in Glasgow for the two-week summit, other sound initiatives will emerge. These will affect all our lives, and will involve changes to our behaviour which may not be universally popular. But as Mr Attenborough said, humanity is “already in trouble” because of rising carbon levels. A long view must prevail, so that we can start “to rewrite our story”.

The two stately 95-year-olds and one angry 18-year-old might have shown differing rhetorical styles at COP26.

But their messages have all converged towards a consensus for action which is of world importance. We should all take note, act on COP26’s edicts while we can and if we do so, as the Queen said, “there is always room for hope”.