Ahead of the United Nation’s latest summit on “global warming,” world leaders flew into Glasgow, Scotland on over 400 private jets, sparking backlash and accusations of hypocrisy, as reported by the New York Post.
Among the leading figures who attended the United Nations Climate Conference (COP26) were Joe Biden, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, England’s Prince Charles, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The leaders then took turns praising each other, with Bezos saying that “The Prince of Wales has been involved in fighting climate change and protecting our beautiful world for five decades — far longer than most.”
However, as a result of the increased air traffic, there were increased traffic jams at the major airports in the area, which forced many planes to redirect as far as 30 miles away to find spare space to park, thus using up even more fuel. Many of the planes involved were hired by rental companies; numerous private rental cars were also used to pick them up from the airports, and these vehicles could be seen lining the streets as they awaited the arrival of the various world leaders.
“Side streets around #COP26 are choked up with chauffeur-driven cars and vans, many with their engines idling,” said Ciaran Jenkins, a reporter with Channel 4 News. “Interesting look for a climate conference.”
Participants of the summit subsequently faced widespread backlash on social media, with Twitter users pointing out the hypocrisy of all the fossil fuels being used up by the summit’s participants just to arrive, in defiance of their own message to use less fossil fuels.
Nigel Farage, the man behind the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union, or “Brexit,” declared that “every world leader or dignitary that arrives to COP26 by private jet is an eco-hypocrite.”
The summit comes as the United Nations ramps up its messaging on global warming, continuing to repeat the debunked prediction that time is running out before global warming destroys the earth. The UN recently released a widely-mocked video on the subject, starring comedian and actor Jack Black as the voice of a computer-generated velociraptor, lecturing the UN General Assembly about global warming and comparing it to the meteor impact that wiped out the dinosaurs.