GLASGOW SUMMIT WAS ANOTHER UNITED NATIONS COPOUT

COP26 may be running into extra time this weekend but few observers have been gripped by the spectacle.

Many in Glasgow and far beyond will be relieved when the climate summit finally packs up and leaves.

Hosting the 40,000-delegate gathering has cost the UK more than £100million.

Yet the last two weeks of global green diplomacy have exposed the hubris and ineffectiveness of the United Nations, which staged the event and briefly turned part of Scotland into its own fiefdom.

Final wrangling over the conclusions of COP26 were continuing last night – but diplomats were expecting the agreed document to be full of aspiration and warm words while lacking in binding targets for the world’s most polluting countries.

British taxpayers provide 5 per cent of the UN’s annual budget of around £6billion.They might be entitled to question the return on their investment on the evidence of the last fortnight.

The UN’s problem is that it remains a bloated talking shop that manages to be bossy and ineffective simultaneously.

It offers a platform for dictators to posture – and then ignore its decisions.

The philosophical roots of the UN lie in a dream of “perpetual peace” between nations, sketched out by the 18th-century German thinker Immanuel Kant.

But his vision was for a congress of “republican” countries – democracies with governments accountable to their citizens, cooperating together. A far cry from the UN.

After two weeks of munching on kale pesto sandwiches and vegan pasties, the delegates are ready to jet off home.

In the US, many politicians would like their country to leave the UN in the same way that the UK quit the EU. Such an idea is never seriously discussed here.

But there won’t be a lot of enthusiasm in the UK for the roadshow to return any time soon.