The irony.
Last Sunday, the United Nations Climate Change summit officially started in Glasgow, Scotland. The event hopes to see some of the biggest names in world politics as attendees such as US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to talk about everything related to saving the environment. But the choice of transportation for many of these guests are, well, private jets which makes this whole scenario quite ironic actually.
An estimated 400 private planes flew into Glasgow to attend the event, as reported by BBC. I mean, that kind of destroys the whole point of having that conference in the first place? Before advocating about the importance of saving the environment using sustainable and eco-friendly materials, the guests chose the worst form of transportation which is responsible for an alarming amount of carbon pollution. A mere four-hour journey on a private jet is equivalent to the greenhouse gases being produced by the average European citizen in one year.
This whole fiasco has divided the people into two groups; one that thinks that this is justified by in-demand public figures as it puts a lot of pressure on their presence while others ponder why they couldn’t have just held a virtual meeting instead like the rest of the world, following the COVID-19 pandemic. “Given all of the travel required to get here, it even further increases the pressure on the shoulders of world leaders to make sure it’s worth it,” Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told the BBC.
I have to agree with the latter, in today’s age and technology, hopping on a Zoom conference would have proved more beneficial for the VIP guests as well as the environment…