From the opening of this climate summit, the great leaders of the planet have displayed the same ambition: to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. And for that, to conclude agreements which will make it possible to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Several European leaders urged their counterparts to take the measure of the urgency, during this COP described as “summit of the last chance”.
From the podium, Boris Johnson declared that it was time to “take global warming seriously”. Emmanuel Macron explains to him that “the developed economies had to take their part”, even adding that their “leadership requires exemplarity”.
On the Tarmac, for the opening of COP26, observers and air trackers were able to see hundreds of private jets and planes from the 5 continents. These travelers included executives but also billionaire philanthropists, such as Amazon boss Jeff Bezos.
While some people had no other option but to fly, this was not the case for everyone. Starting with Boris Johnson who to return from Glasgow shunned the train, in favor of his official plane.
According to our calculations, to travel 555 km, the British Prime Minister would have released up to 760 kilos of CO2. The same train journey would have represented 960 grams of CO2. That is almost 1000 times less.
Faced with the controversy, the British government justified itself, citing an overloaded agenda.
With the exception of a few personalities, such as the mayors of Paris and London who took the train, most preferred the plane. Enough to explode the carbon footprint of this summit, to the regret of environmental associations.
We see that, even in the symbol, leaders who live within 1000km are not even able to come by train or via commercial flights, it is still very disturbing
Marie Cohue, activist of the non-violent association COP26
However, since the start of COP26, there has been talk of the decrease in pollution generated by aviation. It will undoubtedly be necessary to review the flight plan of the participants during the next COP.