COP26: Drinking at the Last Chance Saloon

The UN-led process for global engagement to tackle the adverse effects of climate change - the Conference of the Parties, gearing up for its 26th iteration in Glasgow, Scotland or COP26 - has never failed to disappoint anyone putting far too much store by them. From Copenhagen (2009) to Paris (2015), two of the more serious attempts in a generation to try and hammer out some sort of agreement in which nearly 200 countries can appear to be on the same page, we have seen how ambition in the build up to a conference has sadly fizzled out by the time world leaders actually gather around a negotiating table.