Climate conference in Glasgow: what caused Biden to fall asleep and what Greta Thunberg is screaming

And Joe Biden fell asleep there, as they say, out of boredom.

Gennady Charodeyev

The 26th conference of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change - COP26 - has officially opened in Glasgow, Scotland. It brought together about 50 leaders of states and governments, politicians, environmental scientists, journalists from all over the world.

In addition to the head of the White House, the forum was attended by such prominent figures as French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, as well as former German Chancellor Angela Merkel. On the second day of the meeting, almost all of them presented their vision of measures to combat global warming.

Interestingly, Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain was also preparing to attend the conference, but refused to travel on the advice of doctors. Prince Charles of Wales agreed to represent the august family at the forum, who the day before called the upcoming summit "the last chance" to save the planet.

The leaders of Russia and China did not attend the meeting due to the pandemic. However, judging by the way Joe Biden listened to the speakers, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping did not lose much.

On social media, someone circulated a video clip with the pecking nose of the American president. Hands folded across his chest, 78-year-old Biden snored softly during a speech by one of the climate experts, until one of the assistants came up to him and whispered something in his ear.

Meanwhile, experts from the World Meteorological Organization presented data on climate change in the world. In their opinion, the last seven years on Earth can be considered the "hottest" in the history of mankind. On average, temperatures in the first nine months of 2021 were 1.08 ° C above pre-industrial levels (1850-1900), and sea level rose by an average of 4.4 mm per year from 2013 to 2021. At the same time, according to the report of the UN Environment Program, the world is still "on the trajectory of an increase" in global temperature by 2.7 ° C by the end of the century. It should be remembered that the goal of the Paris Climate Agreement is to keep the parameter within 2 ° С, as well as strive for 1.5 ° С.

At the forum, UN experts clearly stated: in order to reach the cherished 1.5 degrees, radical measures are needed - to stop deforestation all over the planet, stop burning coal, switch to electric cars and switch to "clean" energy by 2045.

Politicians and academics admit, writes the BBC, that there is no money, no political will from the authorities, no patience from citizens for the "green revolution". However, this does not negate the fact that the world will not fulfill the goals of the Paris Agreement if it does not take on increased commitments to reduce emissions.

In Russia, by the way, the temperature rises 2.5 times faster than in other countries. Therefore, climate change in our country is taken extremely seriously. In his video message to the meeting participants, Putin promised that carbon neutrality in Russia should be achieved by 2060.

“Today in Russia the share of energy from practically carbon-free sources - and this, as we know, nuclear power plants, hydroelectric power plants, wind and solar power plants - exceeds 40%. Taking into account natural gas, the lowest-carbon fuel among hydrocarbons, this share is 86%”, - the Russian President said.

At the summit, Russia proposed to formulate common rules of the game: we need a common methodology for measuring harmful emissions and fair consideration of the absorbing capacity of forests.

European leaders have given their own recipes for saving the planet. Some of them are called utopia by experts. So Britain called for a complete abandonment of the use of coal. At the same time, the first coal mine in 30 years is being built in the Kingdom itself. Australia, which ranks second in the world in coal sales after Indonesia, is not going to give up the extraction of this resource either.

The very first day of the summit showed how much words diverge from deeds. In Glasgow, many delegations arrived not on trains or scheduled flights, but on private superjets. Airplanes are the ones that pollute the air the most.

The summit's agenda makes no impression on climate activists, who started large-scale peaceful actions on the streets of Glasgow long before the conference began. Greta Thunberg, a Swedish college student who has arrived in Scotland and has become an icon of climate protest in recent years, is taking an active part in them. She has already spoken to her supporters, saying that politicians, in principle, are not able to cope with the problem of climate change on the Earth, and society must take decisive measures to achieve change.

According to her, no climate change will follow after the conference. Thunberg urged world leaders to stop chatting.

Climate negotiators from national delegations will be working in Glasgow until November 12, the day on which the final documents of the conference are expected to be published.