Many hundreds of delegates had to wait more than an hour to gain entry to Cop26 with some reprimanded for trying to skip to the front of the queue.
Attendees reportedly had to cancel face-to-face meetings after being unable to enter on time as a 2,000-strong queue snaked back from outside the United Nations security checkpoint at the Scottish Exhibition Centre.
In some cases, people waited for almost 90 minutes to gain entry via the airport-style checks.
Some attendees who tried to make their way around the queue were ordered back by guards and police.
“This is a problem with Cop,” one UN observer told the Daily Record. “Everyone has a business class mentality.”
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The queue compounded a frustrating 24 hours for many attendees who had struggled to find transport to Scotland from London because of weather-related problems and line closures on the rail network.
“Why on earth was this venue selected if they knew it could not handle the crowd?” an adviser to Mia Mottley, the prime minister of Barbados, told the Politico website.
Dominic Kavakeb, a senior communications adviser at Global Witness, an international non-government organisation that aims to protect human rights and the environment, told The Guardian: “Too many important voices are going unheard at this climate summit, either because they are blocked from attending by vaccine or economic inequality or, today, because of poor organisation by the UK government.
“There is a special entrance for global leaders and, we presume, for major sponsors, so yet again it is activists, many of whom are from communities hit hard by the climate emergency, who are left out in the cold.”
Laura Young, who is attending the conference with the Christian charity Tearfund, said she and her colleagues were left queuing outside for an hour and a half.
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“I had colleagues arriving at staggered times throughout the morning and we all got held up in this mass of people queuing outside,” The Guardian reported.
“I’m inside now and all the chairs are socially distanced but that obviously wasn’t the case outside.
“Hopefully it will get better over the coming days but yesterday there were people queuing in the morning saying they weren’t going to be able to make their meetings.”
The logjam of delegates came as Glasgow city council acknowledged that the climate conference could lead to a rise in the air pollution.
With roads shutting for state motorcades and protesters, the closures have triggered congestion on major and minor roads.
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About 30,000 delegates and journalists have descended on the city for the conference which continues until November 12.
An official from the city council told Glasgow Live that there could be “localised increases in air pollution levels” as a result of the congestion.
The official said: “Road closures around Cop26 are expected to lead to increased congestion in affected streets for the duration of the restrictions.
“Whilst there is a possibility that this will lead to small, localised increases in air pollution levels, the Get Ready Glasgow travel advice is intended to limit this as much as possible.”
