Failure to confront reality has led to latest COP26 without solving climate crisis - Bernard Ingham

They have not tried to ban our celebration of the Yorkshireman regarded by many as the only chap who ever went to Parliament with good intentions.

That would have been an unwarrantable interference in our history. There is enough of that already from the wokerati without the “greens” charging in.

It was, of course, too much to hope that the UN would have opted for Zoom instead of personal attendance by hordes of politicians, their officials, the world’s media and thousands of pious campaigners.

Had they done so Glasgow Airport would not have been enveloped in CO2, methane and nitrous oxide.

It is because of the failure to confront reality from the first that these conferences on “an existential threat to the planet” have run to 26 episodes without the world getting on top of the greenhouse gas problem. It is unlikely ever to do so unless it faces up to the facts of life.

I have therefore been moved to identify 10 things that should weigh with this solemn conclave...

1. You will not get far if you continue to try to frighten us out of our wits about boiling to death amid ever more traumatic storms, floods and droughts. We had enough of that with the millennium’s supposed threat to computer systems and the “Project Fear” over Brexit. Scare stories have had their day, even allowing for the response to the Covid pandemic.

2. If you are to convince the world that urgent action is needed, you will have to argue the case in a more objective and balanced way. We need to hear from sceptics as well as the committed so that all aspects of the question are exposed. It has taken 250 years of smog to raise world temperatures by 1.5 per cent, assuming that not all the readings are taken in warmer urban places. Why then should it soar when at least some effort is being made to reduce greenhouse gases?

3. Recognise that generally nations, especially when they are trying to recover from the pandemic, are not knowingly going to damage their economy by measures against global warming.

4. In the democratic West, are they going to inflict price or tax penalties on their voters in the cause? That is, unless you live in the UK, which is likely to cost the population £1.3 trillion

(thousand billion) in the quest for net zero.

5. The smokey Communist states – notably China and Russia – may promise the earth but do relatively little; they have a vested interest in weakening the West.

6. It is important to emphasise that the problem is not just greenhouse gases, but a host of other things that are damaging the planet and contributing to the climatic problem such as deforestation and the profligate ways of mankind. We need a comprehensive approach once the case for urgent action has been objectively laid out.

7. Beware of the wing-and-a-prayer approach where objectives are laid down without any convincing way of achieving them economically, assuming the technology is available. The solution does not yet lie in heat pumps, wind, waves, tides, solar power, batteries or carbon sequestration.

8. Put a bomb behind technological research into economically reducing the use of fossil fuels – and recognise the role of clean, proven nuclear power, if it can be financed economically. Please note: neither Russia nor China are models of environmental excellence but they have embraced nuclear power.

9. Emphasise the role the ordinary family can play by reducing their consumption, especially of fossil fuels and products derived from them.

10. Recognise that you cannot commit sovereign states to specific programmes of action: you have to carry them with you and, as an incentive, devise a monitoring and reporting system. Steady progress is required of all nations.

Meanwhile, delegates should not take fright on Friday. Revolution has not broken out. We are just cack-handedly generating greenhouse gases by burning an anti-hero in effigy.