Isle of Wight Green Party spokesperson, Vix Lowthion, mentioned in her letter (CP, 15-10-21) the UN climate change conference being held next month in Glasgow (known as COP26).

People would be right in wondering why upwards of 40,000 people will be flying in (15,000 of whom will be in official capacity representing 140 nations, the rest being campaigners, consultants, media and financiers) to Scotland to seek a solution to reducing emissions when they could just have organised the whole thing via conference calls and e-mail.

An E Conference would have saved the burning of millions of tonnes of aviation fuel required to jet in the various dignitaries and entourages, and the UN could have led by example.

Reuters reported that at the 2015 Paris Conference tiny Guinea sent 398 official delegates, Morocco 439, Cote D’Ivoire 338, Peru 322, Burkina Faso 256 while the UK sent 96 and Germany 114.

There are two ways of interpreting this: either the developed industrial economies do not take these conferences seriously, or other countries use them as an excuse for a Christmas shopping trip.

Either way these conferences tend not to be a very good or valuable use of resources and I am surprised that the Green Party have not acknowledged this.