Editorial: Agent James Shaw on a mission at Glasgow COP 26

Green Party co-leader James Shaw. Photo / Michael Craig

EDITORIAL

Wind gusts off the River Clyde, scooping damp, cold Glasgow air and heaping it around the Scottish Event Campus.

Our Green hero James Shaw steps out of an EV Uber, pulls the collar up on his faux-worsted raincoat and hunches down into the faux-woollen folds. Eyes like freshly excavated coals, he peers around Exhibition Way as rain sweeps the concrete concourse. He strides, manfully and determined, towards the front entrance of the OVO Hydro centre.

The world is imperilled as never before. Shaw has no doubts about the challenge. Others have faltered already at the sheer, daunting task at hand. Jinping, Putin, Francis... hell, even Elizabeth has taken doctors' orders to let it go. Still, Biden's in, and Modi.

The planet has begun unleashing climatic variances so unpredictable that he's surprised to have survived the 33-hour flight from Auckland, with connecting stopovers in Kuala Lumpur and Dubai.

He's painfully aware the flights emitted a quarter of a tonne of CO2 every hour along the way. He grimaces again at the consequences and hopes his wife has planted the extra sunflower seeds they'd purchased for their Aro Valley garden. "It'll be 20 degrees warmer there right now," he thinks, shaking his head to refocus as he almost trips over himself.

"Bampot," mutters a kindly looking man at the door. "Thanks," Shaw replies, clutching his briefing papers close to his chest. "Shaw, James Shaw... from Aotearoa."

"Aarrtie-hoo?" the chap replies.