Ray Mears: COP26 is exhausting and we are only half way through

COP26, it is exhausting. And we are only half way through.

Plant trees, don’t plant trees how complicated could things be?

I have been left feeling that the planet needs a kiss.

Not a great smoochy lip smothering but the type of K.I.S.S. that stands for

KEEP - IT - SIMPLE – STUPID

Let's look at the problems we are facing:

- insulated by excessive co2, methane and other gases our planet is cooking

- pollution is increasing, poisoning the oceans, rivers and air

- the great forests of the world are being felled

- biodiversity is decreasing or being driven into extinction

Put simply, we are making our planet toxic to life as we know it, this is no longer a debate it is a well-established fact, one in which we are already suffering the consequences and one which we cannot predict the long term outcome

In short we are facing the greatest threat to life that our species has ever known.

It is hardly surprising that there have been protests today, people want action.

Yesterday Greta Thunberg led a 25,000 strong youth demonstration outside of the COP26 conference in Glasgow.

Downing Street responded drily commenting that it was unwise for children to strike from school in a year when their education has been so disrupted by COVID.

While the Scottish government in a more empathetic reading of the mood stated that children who took part in the rally should not be penalised.

Environmental concerns have ignited the hearts of our youth. Surely this one issue we should encourage them to engage with and to understand, for they will be the inheritors of the successes and failures.

Greta, who had been looking rather marginalised at the conference grabbed the headlines by denouncing COP26 as a failure and an exercise in green washing.

But it is too soon to make such a claim. For perhaps the first time, this conference has grabbed the worlds attention.

120 world leaders came to Scotland. They came not just because they felt they should, but because their nations sent them. Here lies hope.

Even more amazingly more than 105 countries agreed to reduce methane by 30% by 2030… so many countries agreeing to work together is a momentous event in history that should not be lost under the heckling from microphones.

But what of the important leaders that failed to show up.

Neither Xi-Xinping or Vladimir Putin put in a personal appearance.

China missed an opportunity to take a lead in climate restoration, announcing that they do not feel able to pledge to become carbon neutral by 2030. Arguing that they need thirty extra years because they did not industrialise as early as the west. This is a puerileB argument at best.

I certainly wouldn’t want them in my kitchen, to me problem solvers don’t worry about who spilled the milk or when, they just get on with mopping it up. Ultimately the biggest polluters have the most to gain.

This week will ultimately determine whether or not it is seen as a success or failure, as through a blistering schedule of meetings, countries grapple with the nitty gritty. To me COP26 is the eve of a battle to save life on earth. One in which failure is not an option.

I hope that when world leaders hang their delegate photographs on their office walls they pause a moment and remember that the world is watching and demanding real action. If they get it right they will be able to tell the tale of having been there.

Those who stayed away? They can only hold their heads in shame, as the world looks on with growing, frustration. Do you hear the clock ticking, no autocracy or dictatorship will survive failing to solve the climate issues that we are facing today.