AS the British royal family strives desperately to outrun allegations of sexual misconduct against the Queen’s favourite son, Glasgow’s Cop26 climate summit arrives at an opportune moment. The royals have been given unlimited broadcasting time to pose in their new climate superhero outfits.

It began last week when Prince Charles granted the BBC a guided tour of his Balmoral estate to discuss his concerns about the climate. The BBC billed this as a serious interview, but only if you think serious interviews involve a deferential journalist bowing and nodding as Charles repeated a list of infantile platitudes.

“The problem is to get action on the ground,” he said. What such action might look like remained a mystery because, well … the BBC man didn’t ask him. And then a difficult one. Did he sympathise with Greta Thunberg? “Of course I do, yes. All these young people feel nothing is ever happening. So of course they’re going to be frustrated.”

Later, his son Prince William chipped in with a few banal observations of his own. Even Prince George discovered that you’re never too young to help out with the business of protecting the family fortune. The little chap reportedly expressed his concerns about litter. As he gets older he’ll come to realise that there will be servants to pick it up for him.

William said that saving the planet should be a higher priority than space tourism. Yet, the royals sit at the apex of a system and a creed that’s the greatest cause of global warming: unfettered capitalism. At the core of this is a maniacal desire to accumulate as much land, property and wealth for as little outlay as possible, by all means necessary and for the maximum profit. And then to retain it for as few people as possible. The royals are the embodiment of this.

William’s words would have carried more weight if they didn’t come from a man whose family own castles and palaces all over the UK and have become Europe’s largest private landlords. If a workable solution is to be found to combat global warming then this bizarre arrangement can’t be allowed to continue. That means the fair redistribution of land and resources and an end to the accumulation of vast wealth for its own sake.

Those who seek nothing more than a decent home, a peaceful existence and the means to feed their family aren’t interested in exploiting large swathes of the natural world, waging war and gathering riches to themselves. Re-distributing wealth and land into their hands means the planet has the chance to breathe freely again.

This is a binary choice. If governments really do believe the planet is in mortal danger then capitalism must end. You simply can’t aim for a net-zero future while permitting this psychotic system to be maintained. It would be like trying to clean a river from one end while permitting an open sewer to flow into it at the other end.

Climate change and the desire for a carbon-neutral future is not a priority for the world’s richest companies; it’s a business opportunity. They get to spend millions marketing their green credentials – a new green logo here, an environmentally-friendly sponsorship deal there – while feasting on the planet’s natural catastrophes. While the rest of us recoil at footage of polar ice-caps tumbling into the ocean, the major oil companies rejoice at this unprecedented business opportunity to drill in places previously unattainable.

Sane people are repulsed at the antics of the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro but the chief executives of America’s largest construction companies are ecstatic. “Let’s get another slice of that Amazon jungle before the big man gets voted out.”

In 2017 a study by the respected Climate Accountability Institute found that 100 companies have been the source of 71% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions since 1988.

Just prior to the pandemic, National Geographic reported on a study by a panel of world-class climatologists. These scientists concluded that the majority of carbon emission reduction pledges for 2030 in the Paris Agreement don’t even come close to keeping global warming below 2 degrees celsius. According to the report, “some countries won’t achieve their pledges, and some of the world's largest carbon emitters will continue to increase their emissions.”

When 25,000 delegates have packed up and returned home at the end of Cop26, they will be congratulating themselves on agreeing a concordat couched in the triumphant language of the Paris Agreement. They will all have pledged to redouble their efforts to repel climate change. If you believe any of it then you’re deluding yourself.

Sir Robert Watson, former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and co-author of the panel’s report, said: “We have the technology and knowledge to make those emissions cuts, but what’s missing are strong enough policies and regulations to make it happen.”

And herein lies the problem. The world’s richest corporations will spend billions of pounds to ensure the honeyed prose of whatever flighty document is produced after Cop26 never becomes a reality. Strong policies and regulations will never be permitted to be enacted. Capitalism seeks instant gratification. What makes you think that you can appeal to its better nature with talk about our children’s future when it’s impervious to the needs of children today?

Curiously, the struggle between sustainability and greed is unfolding in Glasgow ahead of Cop26. A major strike by bin workers is planned for the summit. Like many other essential workers during Covid-19 they found that their heroics providing lifeline services weren’t sufficient to be deserving of decent pay and conditions. Almost 97% voted for the action.

At the same time it’s emerged that a vast profiteering racket is underway to fleece delegates seeking accommodation in the city. This was predicted as soon as the announcement was made that Glasgow would be the venue. The Scottish Government and Glasgow City Council have either been asleep or simply didn’t have the will to curb this exploitation on the grand scale.

Fairness or greed; economic justice or grasping avarice. They are a microcosm of the only choice facing delegates at the end of Cop26.

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