Bagpipes, polemical poetry, youth delegates in ethnic headgear and a foggy jeremiad from Prince Charles, who almost took a purler as he mounted the stage: Messrs Xi of China and Putin of Russia must be kicking themselves for not coming.
Cop26 got under way in a low-ceilinged hangar kitted out with desks and low-lighting, rather like a Nasa mission control. Rather than Houston, the message this time was “Earth, we have a problem”.
Boris Johnson told assembled world leaders that they were like James Bond, struggling to defuse a time bomb before it blew the world to smithereens. Given that Bond, with his penchant for Aston Martins, filet mignon and carbon-heavy explosions, is any eco-campaigner’s nightmare, Johnson’s analogy could have been more diplomatic. But 007 would surely have coveted the private jets in which many of the dignitaries had flown to Glasgow. Only Greta Thunberg seemed to have taken the train. Young person’s rail card, one supposes.
Nothing says “welcome to Scotland” quite like the skirl of pipes and one of Nicola Sturgeon’s ticklish, barmaid smiles. Sure enough, there was Sturgeon in the front row, grinding her molars until they started to smoke. The first minister had not been given an opening-ceremony speech. The SNP retaliated by running a series of prominent advertisements boasting that Scotland would soon be an independent nation.
Then — earplugs, Petunia — came the distinctive, goaty growl of smallpipes being elbowed into action. This was followed by a brief performance from Yrsa Daley-Ward, a Lancastrian feminist, model, LGBTQ activist and poet of Jamaican-Nigerian heritage. On the Scrabble board of identity politics she is a walking triple-word score. “The hour is crimson,” she chanted, “the hour is bluing, blue blue. Nothing will change without you.” EJ Thribb (17) may need to raise his game.
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“Powerful, eloquent words,” gushed the BBC news channel’s Annita McVeigh, even though she had talked over much of Daley-Ward’s masterpiece. In the studio alongside McVeigh was the corporation’s “reality check” correspondent, Chris Morris, all bendy ears and designer stubble. Morris spoke in such reverential tones he could have been reporting a royal funeral. Which for one nasty moment we almost had when the Prince of Wales, a liquorice-striped hanky in his top pocket, shuffled towards the stage and tripped up the steps. Very nearly went splat.
Boris’s speech envisaged an ascending scale of disasters, from locust swarms to wildfires to the disappearance of cities such as Miami, Alexandria and Shanghai. Or are they children of David Beckham?
Johnson reminded the leaders that their average age was over 60. Joe Biden, who had arrived in a 25-car motorcade after flying in on Air Force One, looked rather pleased by this verdict. Biden took 40 winks at one point. The youngsters of the world would “judge us with bitterness” if action were not taken, boomed Johnson, adding that he hoped to be alive in 2060, “a mere 94 years old, even if I am not in Downing Street”. At which he departed his script and muttered “humpf, you never know”. Various other speakers: a young woman from the Pacific region, a bloom in her hair; a Kenyan who spoke of drought and dead animals; an Amazon tribe member who described her father as “the great chief”. The great chief of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, managed to speak of “fossil fools”, which is actually rather a good expression, and urged developing countries to “go the extra mile” (1.6 kilometres).
There was a danger of it all turning into a litany of evangelical pessimism, each preacher trying to outdo the previous one with predictions of obliteration. But then Sir David Attenborough was called to the oche, and the catastrophisation finally caught fire. The nonagenarian gripped the lectern and swivelled, right eye bulging as he delivered a terrific, electrifying script accompanied by film and music. The world was in trouble and had gone to the dogs terribly in his lifetime, he said. But the rest of us might yet live to see “a wonderful recovery”. If, if, if.
