Politico | The global elites are headed to Scotland for COP26
- Dozens of world leaders expected to attend the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow next month
- Organisers say they have been swamped with inquiries from the powerful, the famous and famous-adjacent
This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Ryan Heath and Karl Mathiesen on politico.com on October 13, 2021.
Scotland’s largest city – famous for deep fried Mars bars, club nights and sectarian soccer rivalry – is about to attract a network of global elites more comfortable gathering over champagne in Davos for the World Economic Forum.
Corporations, celebrities, royals and religious leaders will be jetting into Glasgow on October 31 for two weeks of the world’s biggest climate gathering, known as COP26.
With less than three weeks until the biggest climate event since Paris 2015, conference organisers have failed to squeeze new pledges out of heavy polluters, including China, India and Australia, but they have told POLITICO they've been swamped with inquiries from the rich and powerful, the famous and famous-adjacent.
Call it climate FOMO, or fear of missing out. “It has reached a critical mass moment,” said a British official not authorised to speak to media.
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“Right now, we've got senior executives not knowing if they can travel to Glasgow, or if they should, because they don't know if they'll get a … pass,” said Michael Liebreich, a clean energy expert who is trying to smooth the way for executives by hosting VIP events outside the official conference venue.
Keeping the most famous climate faces out of the diplomatic “blue zone” of the conference brings its own challenges.
“The true nightmare scenario for organisers is the security of Greta Thunberg,” the Swedish climate activist, said a Spanish official involved in organising the previous COP conference, COP25, which took place in Madrid in 2019. “Everywhere she went, she was followed by hundreds of people. We tried to get her people to agree to an itinerary so we could protect her. They refused.” Thunberg’s team did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
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Green but still VIP
In addition to the official COP “blue zone” (for diplomats) and “green zone” (for civil society and corporations), an informal platinum zone is developing around the conference, catering to the Davos set that isn’t tempted by the pubs and kebab shops within walking distance of the venue.
Liebreich and others have built a sideshow to the UN talks that, in their minds at least, is more important than what will happen inside the walls of the conference centre.
Stately homes, dotted throughout the Scottish countryside, are suddenly booked out, including the 800-year-old Craufurdland Castle estate. Property managers for several estates declined to say who had rented the properties during COP26.
One castle on the Glasgow outskirts has been rented by a consortium of the National Grid, the utility Octopus energy, the US Atlantic Council think tank and Liebreich for a two-week programme of discussions and dinners – many of which will have a paying sponsor. Liebreich, who wouldn’t reveal the location for fear of drawing the attention of activists, said it was “a perfectly nice venue for very serious people to get together”.
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Liebreich’s gathering might be small, but the ambition is big. He said his is aiming for “sort of Bretton Woods for Glasgow, but on a teeny, teeny scale with 40 people”.
The team of COP26 President Alok Sharma, the UK minister in charge of the talks, have been inundated with invites to private dinners and receptions, but are turning them down so that he can focus on the diplomatic negotiations.
The World Economic Forum, the organisation that takes over Davos each January, is also descending on Glasgow. “We are launching our big First Movers Coalition with Secretary John Kerry. We have a full schedule of discussions and meetings co-designed with our partners and will be streaming to our website as well,” said WEF spokesperson Madeleine Hillyer.
But if you haven’t already booked your Glasgow accommodation: good luck.
COP outgrows the UN
The UN climate convention has met almost annually since 1995 and struck its crowning deal in 2015 with the Paris Agreement. Since then, negotiators have continued to meet and fight over arcane rules, while other actors including city administrations and large companies have charged ahead with their own detailed emissions reduction plans.
“The UN can do what the UN can do,” Liebreich said. “They can create talking shops for everybody, it can create some moral suasion and some pressure … but we clearly need different platforms.”
Until the Paris Agreement, it was mostly left-wing governments which provided those platforms, but now it is a broader set of actors shaping climate action – including city administrations and large companies.
Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Confederation of Trade Unions, thinks this wider climate movement is necessary, and mostly a sign of progress. “This time there are industry days committed to transition action for net zero,” Burrow said.
While wary of “fossil fuel companies with a tinkering or business-as-usual approach,” she said the broader interest in COP conferences is a step forward from the decade of lobbying it took to get human rights and “just transition” language into UN climate declarations, starting in Paris in 2015.
The risk of greenwashing by large companies at COP26 is real, but with so many governments refusing to live up to their commitments, climate movements are left working with what they can.
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