They set off for COP28 - David Cameron, Rishi Sunak and King Charles - in a squadron of private jets. Picture them, high on moral purpose, spreading contrails across the canopy of the earth.
Behind them lay a landscape strewn with false hopes and broken promises. Cameron entered Downing Street pledging to provide “the greenest government ever,” but his climate change achievements - reductions in emissions and investment in clean energy - were soon offset by the slashing of environmental budgets and new tax breaks for North Sea oil and gas firms.
As for Sunak: where to start? He signalled his direction of travel by removing the UK COP26 president Alok Sharma from his Cabinet. Since then, he has recast himself as chief petrol head, performing a series of handbrake turns, including the postponement of the phaseout of non-electric cars, and vowing to “max out” the North Sea.
Humza Yousaf flew to COP28, too, along with Net Zero Secretary Màiri McAllan, who last month told Holyrood’s Climate Action Summit it was “not the right time” to publish the Scottish government’s new plan on how to meet its emission targets. When Yousaf became First Minister, his government had already been warned its ambition to reach Net Zero by 2045 was in danger of being rendered meaningless by the absence of any clear strategy. More recently, his mantra of a “just transition” to renewable energy was shattered by the absence of any apparent contingency for the closure of Grangemouth oil refinery.
In front of UK delegates lay the United Arab Emirates - a landscape seeped in oil and gas - and a COP28 president, Sultan Ahmed Al-jaber, who is chief executive of the country’s national oil company Adnoc. Al-jaber denies suggestions he planned to abuse his position to strike better deals with foreign governments. Still, for a summit aimed at securing a global cut in fossil fuels to be led by the head of a company expanding its oil production capacity is sub-optimal.
Sure, the pledging of more than $400m to a Loss and Damage fund for victims of climate change is a landmark development, though the US’s........