Power of veto

Prior to signalling that the deal had been agreed, Alok Sharma, the president of COP26 was reduced to tears as he apologised to the delegates “for the way this process has unfolded”. He was talking about the late change to the agreement where a pledge to “phase out” coal was changed to “phase down'” meaning countries that burn coal could now take some time to effect any changes. He got a standing ovation.

Once again the power of 197 countries, each one with a veto that can sc upper any agreement, watered down the messagethat cop 26 was sending to the world. This veto ruling has to change – even the European Union has now recognised the importance of this point.

The essence of the conference has been variously described as “a marathon not a sprint”, or “we are at the floor not the ceiling”, or “trying to put the Paris agreement into practice”, but none of these statements helps to obtain an agreement which actually reduces greenhouse gases.

Coal is described as the “world's strongest driver of climate change” but it is not – lignite, or brown coal, or turf as it is best known, spews out four times as much noxious gas per ton as coal, but the world only burns 800 million tons of lignite so it does not even get on the agenda. If we stopped mining lignite tomorrow we could reduce climate change gases by 2.6 billion tons of coal equivalent each year.

The other major point which does not get so much traction, is the money that many countries are demanding as reparations for the centuries of CO2 etc which has been produced by the richest countries. This is a good idea as some of these particularly small countries are already feeling the effects of climate change with rising sea levels, but, the money has to be policed to ensure that it is being spent to alleviate the effects of climate change, and not ending up in personal bank accounts.

Remember: the quickest way to get cash into a Swiss bank is to send it to a country which has only one political party.

JAMES MACINTYRE Linlithgow, West Lothian