“The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday – but never jam today.”
“It must come to ‘jam today’,” Alice objected.
“No, it can’t,” said the Queen. “It’s jam every other day: today isn’t any other day you know.”
- Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll (1865)
If, like me, you followed COP26 through the television screen, did you find it to be a totally dispiriting experience? It was as if the good guys were locked outside in the cold and damp of a Glasgow winter while the bad guys were inside enjoying the warmth and free hospitality. Perhaps the reality was more nuanced.
There were exceptions, of course. That nice man from the United Nations who begged nations to stop drilling and digging before we all either drown, starve or burn to death. Sadly, those who should have been listening were not present and, if they were, would probably have stuck their fingers in their ears. Plus, there was that rather nice Tory chairing the proceedings (yes there are some) who has all the makings of the fall guy who did his best, only be awarded with a peerage and a life of obscurity in the House of Lords.
At least Sir David Attenborough and Prince Charles gave it to the delegates straight. Change your ways or we all done for should not be a difficult message to take on board after all. Step forward the guy in charge of things back in India. Yes – he will stop coal mining (three cheers) but not until two decades after the key date of 2050 (boo!!). China has no plans to stop coal mining nor does Australia. They mumble about new technologies that will, in time, replace the need for coal. After all, there are elections to be won in Australia (jobs in coal today are worth more votes than new in jobs in renewable energy tomorrow) and for China getting one over the Yanks is a greater priority. It would all be so pathetic if it was not so important.
Barack Obama was outstanding. He knows what needs doing and appears one of the few with the knowhow and commitment to get the job done. Why cannot he be appointed world leader?
And then we have Boris Johnson. The world stage beckoned and with it ample opportunity for the Court Jester act. This act is not accidental. It is well crafted and much loved by many in his voter base. Why take politics seriously when there are votes aplenty in jokes, boosterism and endless metaphors? He is, of course, the classic political insider where he has been lurking for decades now behaving as an outsider come to shake the system up.
It all started at the G20 get together in Rome. Boris turns up late for the group photo. I would suggest this is not accidental. After all, turning up late, being pushed into your place by the other leaders as they applaud is guaranteed a slot on the TV news bulletins back home. The photo op becomes all about him and that’s exactly how he likes it.
The week after overseeing a Budget which hardly mentioned global warming but did include a cut to domestic air passenger duty, Boris tells the world that it is five to midnight in the race to tackle global warming. I remember David Cameron tell us the purpose of HS2 was to decrease domestic air travel. Why pay £60 for a high-speed train ride to Birmingham when you can fly from London to Birmingham for six quid?
Boris graciously grants the British media an interview, but it had to be in the Colosseum. Boris the gladiator – just imagine.
The roadshow moves onto COP26 in Glasgow. Suddenly in Boris world it is no longer five to midnight but approaching half time with the World XI 5-1 down. As always Boris sees hope and the prospect of two further goals that will force extra time! Boris’s metaphors float over the heads of delegates who sit in confused stony silence as Boris stops his speech for the applause which never comes. Never mind - this is not for the folks in the hall, but voters watching on TV across the UK.
Photos emerge of him looking slightly scruffy and unkempt with Carrie trying to tidy him up. A photographer nearby to get the right image to those voters who love him because he looks if he needs mothering (pause for vomit!).
So one week global warming was not all that important (after all in Boris world a wind turbine could not knock the skin off a rice pudding), the following week it is five to midnight or approaching half time (take your pick), but that lasted until midweek when Boris had to rush back to London on a private jet to attend a dinner with his Daily Telegraph chums (of whom at least one is a climate change sceptic) at the all-male Garrick Club. He simply did not have time for the much more environmentally friendly train which takes all of four hours to get from Glasgow to London.
Before he leaves Glasgow, Boris grants an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. No doubt Boris thought this would be a bit of a doddle, a chance to put Johnny (or should it be Joanne) Foreigner in his/her place. Christiane enquires as to what explanation he has for falling asleep, mask-less, next to the 95-year-old David Attenborough who a few minutes earlier Boris had described as a “national treasure”. He was not expecting that! After all, he was being accused of trying to finish off the anointed National Treasure through thoughtlessness and carelessness. Suddenly Boris was in a corner – no way out with a joke, a metaphor or a bit of boosterism. He smirked, looked off to the right and bumbled. Perhaps Laura Kuenssberg, Robert Peston et al might learn a thing or two from Christiane. She clearly cares little for reputations and is not intimidated by Boris Johnson. Anyway, Boris has all the sleaze stuff to worry about and parking that in a corner is more important to his re-election chances than saving the world from itself up in Glasgow (or as he later thought Edinburgh).
I got the feeling from Glasgow that those with most to gain from making sure nothing changes and, if it does it will be at a glacial pace determined by them, were being increasingly called out. After all the world is already suffering the consequences of our two-hundred-year binge on coal and oil. Rising temperatures, forest fires, rising sea levels, melting ice, more and increasingly severe storms and those on the receiving end are shouting out.
A glimmer of hope has appeared, and Mark Carney seems to be driving it. It might be okay today for Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, India and Australia to cock a snoop at the rest of the world, but they will need money to continue exploiting the Earth’s resources with impunity. There is now more than a hint that the world’s money men and women will not give it to them. Some politicians may not be able to look beyond their next election or the culture wars they are stirring up at home, but the money folks can. Why lend money to a country only to have no return as the investment disappears under water, melt under severe heat or the millions on the move simply to find food. The money folks seem to be saying increasingly “if you want funds from the world’s piggy bank then you have to invest it in a sustainable future so we can still get a return.” So simply no money for coal mines or oil wells but money will be made available for wind farms, solar panels, alternative technologies, electric engines, reforesting and so on. This might look like capitalism saving itself, but I am not sure there is a better offer on the table if nations will not behave in a sensible way and reform their ways voluntarily.
The harsh reality is that the world can only be saved from itself by effective cooperation between governments making regulations and the corporate world focusing on the investment and innovation necessary to deliver the actions necessary to restrict global warming to +1.5 degrees. Currently it feels like we are a long way from that with fossil fuel lobbyists and their government allies clearly dragging their feet. I just wonder what these folks think is going to happen? Do they believe the Gods of global warming will take pity on us poor earthlings and slow down the warming of the planet while certain folks catch up?
I do not know if Boris Johnson reads the Washington Post but if he does, he would not have been too pleased to see the headline reading “Britain’s Boris Johnson should be basking in a global moment. Instead he is mired in ‘sleaze.’ It would not be unreasonable to reflect that this headline reflects a wider world view of our PM.
Boris at the last moment is spotted boarding a train to Glasgow (not important enough for a private jet this time) to face the challenging task of potentially saving a conference that was supposed to showcase Boris’s global Britain.
It was obvious at the end that COP26 is facing real challenges with a combination of no-show countries and naysayer countries, fossil fuel corporations and lobbyists trying to influence events, resulting in little action being taken in the short term, kicking the oil barrel down the road.
By the end it seemed the smart money was on the financial big players deciding what happened in the future. Will those of integrity and goodwill triumph over those who believe a profit today is more important than global destruction tomorrow? Mark Carney may well emerge with the biggest smile.
The reality is that COP26 fell drastically short of what it set out achieve. Tough political decisions were deflected and responsible decision making delegated to those who hold the purse strings of the future.
I just wish Barack Obama was Britain’s PM and not Boris Johnson who I doubt had much credibility with delegates. Johnson appeared to invest little time in banging heads and bringing the world together in its own best interests. A piece of work which would have put substance around his Global Britain rhetoric. Anyone for knocking the skin off a rice pudding?
The end reality was that one less lump of coal and one less litre of oil will not be dug or drilled from the ground for years to come. In the meantime, Boris’s clock ticks ever onwards to midnight.
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