Manmade Global Warming - New Extremes, page-126

What a mess ... ... Oooooh Dear ...

Eye watering Hotel Rates and a Resurgent Pandemic ...

OCTOBER 22, 2021


The most expensive COP on record

As early as January local media reported that hotels and rental apartments had begun hiking prices for November bookings to around 500% of the norm. As of Oct. 22, the cost to rent a one-bedroom apartment in Glasgow for the duration of the conference was around £6,000, according to advertisements on booking.com, and no hotel rooms were available. The price of hosting events inside the COP26 venue is also higher than at previous summits, in part due to labor and supply shortages related to Brexit and the pandemic. According to the Financial Times one scientific organisation was quoted nearly £500,000 for the cost of building and running its pavilion. One former developing country negotiator, who has been to over 20 previous COPs, says that Glasgow is the most unaffordable COP she has ever attended...


Difficult conditions on the ground

For delegates that can actually get to Glasgow, conditions will be unusually tough. Rail workers and trash collectors in Glasgow have announced that they will go on strike during the summit amid disputes over pay, and bus drivers are considering doing the same. The U.K.’s COVID-19 transmission rate has surged in recent weeks to one of the highest in the world, endangering unvaccinated delegates and heightening the risk of an outbreak that disrupts the summit. “I think the outside world may struggle to comprehend the level of effort that negotiators put in to be mobilized for up to 12 or 20 hours, not even not sleeping much [towards the end of the summit] to reach a breakthrough,” says Dagnet. “Wearing masks during all that time is going to be really difficult. And because this is really two COPs in one, the sheer volume of issues on the table, they won’t get any breathing space between meetings. ”Concerns over the organization raised by sponsors—and the need for COVID screenings for the 20,000 participants—have stoked fears among observers that Glasgow could be a repeat of the 2009 Copenhagen COP, when “disastrous” organization led to delegates queuing for hours outside infreezing temperatures and snow. The summit ended in marked failure.

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