YOU’D be entitled to think by now that the global environmental movement might have found a different way of organising major events. Its outstanding charism is a mission to reduce our consumption of the planet’s resources. Without this the rest is meaningless.  

The main reason why we’ve reached this critical point in our stewardship of earth is because we’ve been complicit in the greed which drives over-consumption. We prefer to seek the path of least resistance by choosing to acquiesce in the institutional profiteering that chiefly account for the climate crisis.  

So long as we have built our own nests and a measure of long-term economic security we’re content to avert our gaze and pass by on the other side rather than ask the questions which need to be asked.  

The Cop26 Climate Summit which begins in Glasgow next weekend is a monument to excess. While 25,000 delegates gather in conference halls to rebuke the psychotic behaviours which have led us to this point they are actually perpetuating it. Very few cities are large enough to absorb the effects of so many people descending upon it for ten days of intense engagement. Glasgow isn’t one of them.  

Many of these visitors are princes and potentates in their own earthly jurisdictions and will therefore require a vastly swollen security and hospitality package to ensure they are accommodated in the manner to which they are accustomed. It would be hard to think of a more fitting metaphor to illustrate excessive consumption.  

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In seeking to justify this we reach for an old delusion: the economic boost to the host city. Ah yes; that one. Thus, a figure is quickly plucked from a nexus of unsourced and invisible estimates based entirely on the calculus of capitalism. In Glasgow’s case it’s around £100m, an admittedly beguiling approximation. Attempts to mine this figure for evidence of sustainable, long-term benefits to the local population are discouraged. Instead, we’re urged to get with the picture, man.  

Will this injection of £100m into the local economy (assuming it to be accurate) create a significant number of real jobs, paying the real living wage? Will these jobs offer the security of reasonably long-term engagement, say five years? Will it be ring-fenced and used to finance specific projects benefiting the people of Glasgow? And by that I don’t mean handing a six-figure dollop of poppy to Glasgow University to fund study programmes. Or commissioning one of the Scottish Government’s unicorn NGOs to build a garden of sustainability in an east end park where local schoolchildren compete to design a logo in exchange for a wee visit to Bute House.  

How much of this fabled £100m will instead be used to boost the profits of the luxury hotel sector? How much of it will fund an overseas holiday or a fancy new car for the middle-class households renting out their houses on a tidy, per-diem basis? 

For the two-week duration of the Climate Summit around nine miles of Glasgow’s roads will be closed, thus exacerbating the disruption already caused by Covid-delayed repair-work. Commuters, especially those low-paid ones who have no option but to attend their workplaces will find it more difficult to do their jobs.  

As they seek alternative means of accessing the city traffic congestion will build in small outlying areas leading to unavoidably higher CO2 emissions from thousands of over-heating engines. Those exhaust emissions will contribute to a total CO2 tonnage of more than 50,000 caused by the summit, the equivalent of the annual fossil fuel emission of 25,000 cars.  

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The big roads will be left free for the anointed delegates to be ferried to and from their hotels in a fleet of Jaguar SUVs. But hey, the Jaguars are all electric. For the few; not the many. 

Not long after Glasgow was chosen to host Cop26 a senior executive in the Scottish Police Federation told me his members were preparing for “the biggest logistical challenge the Scottish police have ever faced”. He wouldn’t predict the actual cost but estimated it to be in hundreds of millions, covering the over-time and living needs of 10,000 officers a day.  

If you’re employed in Glasgow’s lively organised crime sector this is sweet, sweet music to your ears. So, at least some of the citizenry might derive a turn from Cop26. And, as the proceeds of crime in this city tend to flow quickly into the local economy (money-laundering if you’re being uncharitable about it) there’ll be a beneficial knock-on effect to local traders. So, three cheers for the Cop26. 

Last weekend the communications director of Glasgow City Council struggled to hide his exasperation at the prospect of the bin workers strike occurring during Cop26. Could they not just do it some other time, he pleaded. But if not here and not now, when? Low-paid workers in essential services have very few means of leverage in their eternal struggle for fair wages and conditions. So wire right in, ladies and gents and fill your boots. Squeeze every ounce of capital you can from this performative jamboree.   

A curious strain of collective narcissism is evident in some responses to Cop26. “How do I look? How do I look?” We want our city to dress to impress. Yet, as with all these global grandstanding events for the political elites any scrutiny of the persistent darkness enveloping a city’s excluded communities will be discouraged. Looking good for two weeks is all that matters.    

Some of those delegates seeking time for a few holes at Loch Lomond Golf Club (55k up-front and two grand a year thereafter) may also express a long-held desire to gaze upon Scotland’s most famous National Park and waterway. Perhaps they might consider asking why the Scottish Government, together with its main business development body and the local authority are currently in the process of privatising this natural asset and parcelling it up for entitled billionaires and theme-park operators.  

Best tell the chauffeurs of all those Jaguar SUVs to keep them away from Loch Lomond. Better still, take them to Hogganfield Loch instead. After getting sparkled with a few bottles of the official conference champagne they probably won’t know the difference anyway.