THE QUEEN stole the show via a video message at the COP26 summit in Glasgow.
Begging the question: Why wasn’t the whole event conducted online as a “green” message to the world?
Instead there are more than 400 jets, many of them private, sitting on the tarmac at Glasgow International Airport.
At a conservative estimate, they will pump 13,000 tonnes of CO2 into the air — more global warming gas than around 1,600 Scots would burn through in a year.
One of those jets, a chartered Airbus, transported our own PM Boris Johnson back to London last night because, as No 10 breezily explained, his time is more important than the message it would send.
Oh dear. He’s veering dangerously in to Harry and Meghan “do as we say, not as we do” territory.
And what about the valuable time of the, say, nurse, carer or firefighter who bought a diesel car to get themselves to work in the early hours after Gordon Brown’s 2001 “dash for diesel” budget and now find themselves punished to the tune of £12.50 a day by the Mayor of London’s new ultra low emissions zone (ULEZ).
Those with cash to spare will either have a post-2015 model or will have off-loaded their diesel for an overpriced electric car to escape this latest green tax.
But those of lower income who need their trusty old car/van for their job can’t afford to buy a Tesla so Elon Musk can fire off another rocket.
As ever, while the lives of the virtue-signalling architects of these cash-grabbing policies remain largely unaffected, the heaviest brunt is borne by the ordinary people who can least afford them.
Ordinary people, I might add, who are very much on board with wanting to help the planet, but not if it’s to the detriment of being able to keep their head above water financially.
Meanwhile, continuing her tour of safe countries already implementing green policies, climate change activist Greta Thunberg is shouting the odds in Glasgow too — while China and Russia remain oblivious to her, er, charms.
But you know what? Unlike many of the world lead-ers grandstanding in Glasgow, at least she practises what she preaches.
So too does Sir David Attenborough, who has more credibility on this matter than all of the COP26 grandees put together.
“This COP26 is so far just like the previous COPs, and that has led us nowhere,” says Greta, 18.
“Inside COP, there are just politicians and people in power pretending to take our future seriously, pretending to take the present seriously.”
Indeed there are. Politicians who clearly think the green policies they are pushing on the rest of us are for the little people and not for them.
We’re either all in this together . . . or we’re not.
And an airport packed with luxury jets (not to mention Joe Biden’s 22-strong vehicle motorcade) very much suggests the latter.
