The COP26 President’s travels

Unless you follow British politics or are involved in the climate change movement you probably won’t have heard of Alok Sharma, Britain’s climate minister. And in his official role as President for COP 26, the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference, he has made a major contribution – for the worse – to climate change in recent months.

Apparently, as preparation for COP26, taking place in Glasgow at the moment, Mr Sharma, since the beginning of the year travelled to no less than 30 countries. Obviously all of it by air, a traditionally not very environmentally friendly way to travel.

But not only that: Most of Sharma’s trips were during the winter and spring months when international travel from the UK was mostly banned. He visited India, Costa Rica, Qatar and UAE in March, while in April he travelled to South Korea and Japan before going to Bangladesh in June. Not all of the 30 known trips were return flights to the UK, but travel to and from all the destinations would total 200,000 miles, or the equivalent to eight times around the Earth.

And it gets even better: While the general British public has been locked up on their island for most of the year so far or had to quarantine at home if not at their own expense in an airport hotel under government supervision, Mr Sharma didn’t have to do any of this, despite several of the 30 countries were at the time of Sharma’s visit in Britain ‘s red list (which since has been abolished), which normally would have meant a mandatory 11 night stay in a quarantine hotel for him.

Once again this raises the suspicion that it is one set of rules for the general public and a different one for our politicians. Personally I am convinced that most of the visited countries would have made the same climate change commitments without Mr Sharma‘s visit. After all global warming and preventive measures are very high profile issues – and quite rightly so – hence why no respectful government would want to be seen not to do the right thing.

This is not the first time that a member of the current U.K. government seem to be out of touch with their electorate. And am I the only one who has the impression that this disparity between the governors and the governed is getting ever wider? Politicians like Alok Sharma better remember that there will be a next election and that it is the governed who will decide their fate at the ballot box.