Cop26 rats act clean but all they want is dirty cash

Welcome to the nightmare that is Halloween 2021. We may not get out alive.

You thought Corrie’s “visual spectacular” – Horror Nation Street – was frighteningly bad (it was, with more plot holes than sink holes, and drama collapsing into a sewer of high farce).

But the real scary stuff is happening around us, right here, right now, far from the unstable cobbles of Weatherfield.

Beware the giant rats… not the ones scurrying through rubbish that Glasgow bin collectors might pick up now they’ve finally got a decent pay offer.

Look out for the ones descending on

Glasgow for the Cop26 summit with absolutely no intention of taking the necessary action to tackle climate change.

They’ll have burned the equivalent of a rainforest to show face here and will produce more hot air than 10,000 farting cows.

They’ll pose for team photos, shake hands with Greta

Thunberg and slag off the no-shows like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping for their evident lack of commitment to the cause.

They’ll fawn at the

Queen’s video message, they’ll sign documents, make pledges and issue decrees, then they’ll jump into jets or their armoured cars to return home and carry on as before.

In the case of the Tories, they’ll continue taking bumper donations from fossil fuel companies and those with financial interest in their continued use, from

Russian oligarchs who’ve made fortunes from energy companies, and even climate change sceptics.

They’ve received £1.3million from such lobbying groups since 2019. Some individual MPs received donations from sources linked to the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a think tank of climate change deniers.

They’ll carry on committing dastardly deeds like voting to allow water companies to dump raw sewage into rivers. Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross did precisely that last week, just before the so-called “make or break” climate conference in his native land.

Rishi Sunak compounded the humiliation by cutting air passenger duty on short-haul flights in the Budget.

Money and power. That’s what matters to these folk. Are we really seeing evidence that they give an ethically produced fig about saving the planet?

Cop26’s greatest goal is a pledge by all countries to reach net zero emissions by 2050, 29 years on. Who will get the accolades if this goal is achieved nearly three decades from now?

Many of those jostling for best position in the Cop26 group picture will happily sign up to the agreement, then kick the ball into the long grass for some successor or other to deal with while they get on with instant gratification. More wicked than the wickedest witch, they betray every one of us who loyally recycle, turn down their heating, refill their soap bottles, take reusable bags to the shops or drive an electric car.

The Prime Minister’s Cop26 spokesperson, Allegra Stratton, let us in on a secret spell that could turn us all into environmental activists: don’t rinse the dishes before popping them in the dishwasher; ditch your plastic bottle of shower gel for a bar of soap (packaged in cardboard, not plastic presumably); stick any leftover bread in the freezer for future use instead of papping it in the bin. Alakazam! The world is saved.

So big business can carry on producing oil, pumping CO2 into the atmosphere, destroying environments, packaging their products in single-use plastic and dumping waste at sea because they might bung a few quid into political coffers along the way.

Just 20 fossil fuel companies are believed to have contributed 35 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions since 1965. They were doing it before I was born, for heaven’s sake (and, yes, I know, that wasn’t yesterday).

But we should feel guilty for wasting water by washing the remnants of spag bol off the dinner plates before using the dishwasher?

The world seems a scary place this Halloween – its future is frightening.

Message to Cop26 delegates: don’t be a giant rat. There are far too many in Glasgow already.