THE young people walking from Cornwall to Glasgow should be invited to address the conference, as their negative effect on the climate while travelling to it has been minuscule compared to that of the organisers, officials and delegates.
Several cases have been made for physical attendance being essential at COP26 on the grounds that tele-conferencing just can’t replace person to person meetings.
Of course it can’t, we all know that as we have spent months using the phone, WhatsApp, Zoom, Teams etc to keep in touch with our families and friends, elections have been held and our parliaments have remained fully functional.
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Now those who are going to save the world at COP26 say that they can’t adapt to the conditions that have applied to everyone else during the pandemic. It looks like COP26 could be remembered for having the wrong people in the wrong place at the wrong time. The physical conference is going to produce a spike in carbon emission. Let’s hope that it doesn’t produce a similar spike in Covid infections as well due to so much face to face contact.
John Jamieson
South Queensferry
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