COP 26, Flight Home, Letter to the Prime Minister on CO2 reduction and Daylight Saving

COP26 is the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference

For nearly three decades the UN has been bringing together almost every country on earth for global climate summits – called COPs – which stands for ‘Conference of the Parties’. In that time climate change has gone from being a fringe issue to a global priority.

This year was the 26th annual summit – giving it the name COP26. With the UK as President, COP26 took place in Glasgow last month.

Main aim: Secure global net zero by mid-century and keep 1.5 degrees within reach

UK power generation by source type at 08.13 on 13/11/2021

I don't know whether it can be considered a success or not. The only thing that is clear to me is that the increasing amount of media time devoted to climate change and saving our world can only be a good thing. There can't be that many climate change deniers left now surely? 

Despite the serious nature of the conference, host speaker Prime Minister Boris Johnson tried to make light of it and entertain the global audience which, unsurprisingly, went down badly. He had another bad speech recently when he lost his speech notes to the CBI and tried to recover with anecdotes about Peppa Pig World where he had recently been to visit.

Boris Johnson lookalike, Peppa Pig

90 Minute Flight Home (before Omicron)

I thought travelling abroad was bad last month and that was before the new Omicron restrictions made it much worse!

• Got to airport through the French fog and managed to finally get past the old man in front of me driving at 30mph.
• Handed back hire car although we had to walk to the desk with all our baggage, only to be told by the member of staff who had followed us from the car park to go back out to the car again!
• Spent over 45 minutes in the check in queue. A couple of people didn't have their covid documents and each took at least 10 minutes to sort out. Everyone who had the correct documents (which we had been told to bring numerous times) sailed through in about a minute.
• Then we queued a few minutes at security.
• The we queued for about 10 or 15 minutes at passport control. We squeezed under the barrier and joined the back of the queue rather than following the queue zig zag lanes for 200m of unnecessary walking and dragging of bags.
• Then we joined the queue to board the plane which only took a couple of minutes.
• The plane arrived in London a few minutes early and we boarded buses to get to the terminal building.
• Both my passport and my wife's were rejected at the e-gates so we had to queue for another 5 minutes for the human passport checks.
• By this time our bags were waiting for us on the conveyor belt so we picked them up and them went to the car park and had to wait about 15 minutes for our car.
• Then we drove home.

It felt like we had just completed a highly stressful, extremely frustrating and physically exhausting challenge! I guess we had (:  Who said travel broadens the mind? 

My e-Letter to the PM

Dear Prime Minister

There is one thing that you could easily do that you would be remembered for in a positive light. And let's be honest, even being generous, your handling of the Covid 19 pandemic, Brexit and your Moral Standards are not remotely going to fall into that category. 

When I got up this Saturday morning at 7am, it was just getting light but all outside was quiet. Apart from one of my neighbours walking the dog, there was little activity to observe. Either most people were still in bed or they were busy indoors. I imagine that tomorrow, Sunday will be even quieter before we return to the busy week with more people getting up earlier and returning home in our cold wintery dark and often damp afternoons and evenings.

At a simple stroke, and at virtually no cost, you could achieve the following:

A reduction in the number of deaths

A reduction in the UK's CO2 emissions

A happier and more productive population

All you have to do is to scrap the seasonal clock changes and stick to summer time all year round. Simples!

An online survey across the EU in 2018 showed an overwhelming majority (including the UK) did not want to change the clocks any more. Going home at the end of the working day when we are tired and it's darker than it could be causes hundreds of extra deaths every year according to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.  And according to the 10:10 climate change campaign, brighter evenings could also help the country meet our carbon emissions targets by saving almost 500,000 tonnes of CO2 each year.

Do this, Prime Minister, and not only will it cost the taxpayer next to nothing to achieve, but you will gain some popularity, which let's face it you are pretty short of right now, and by taking leadership in this matter, you can watch other countries follow.

How often do you get the opportunity to offer so much to so many for so little?

Kind Regards

Adam Sidbury

Former Tory Voter

cc Layla Moran, Constituency MP