COP26 is a climate farce.

The world’s rich, famous, and powerful are sitting around enjoying top-tier meat at a swanky dinner party laughing about how the poor will be forced to eat insects and lab-grown protein to ‘save the planet’.

On the menu at the Glasgow climate whinge – haggis, venison casserole, fish and chips, bacon, chicken, turkey, smoked salmon, and beef.

But don’t worry.

In huge letters at the top of the online menu, it proudly declares that this dining event is a ‘plant forward’ mission.

“We are taking a plant-forward approach, using local and UK sourced in-season produce. Plant-based food products are one of the most effective ways for us to reduce emissions, so we increased the proportion of plant-based dishes, without compromising on variety, quality or taste,” read a statement from Levy, the organisers of the menu for COP26.

Listed next to each dish is its corresponding carbon footprint, indicating that the carbon value of food will one day be interchangeable with price and calories.

“Today, an average meal has a carbon footprint of 1.7 kg CO2e in the UK. According to the WWF, we need to get this number down below 0.5 kg CO2e to reach the goals defined in the Paris Agreement. By including climate labels on our menus, we aim to make it easier to achieve this goal – together.”

One-in-nine people on Earth are starving to death, so that probably won’t be a problem.

It is not an unreasonable fear to assume that digital social credit schemes will rate citizens on their carbon footprint food choices, perhaps even denying them access to food if the government deems it necessary to ‘save the planet’. China already docks its citizens’ social credit points for making poor food purchases. Too many chocolate bars and you can forget about sending your children to a good school.

I’m surprised there isn’t a ‘cobalt score’ attached to the sale price of electronic devices so that ordinary people can judge how much child slave labour went into the creation of renewable technology.

“The climate emergency is the biggest challenge of our lifetime and food has a key role to play in global emissions. Our target is to reach Net Zero in our Levy UK business by 2027 in the right way. COP26 will be a catalyst for learning and change across our business,” said Levy, while calling for a ‘food revolution’.

If history serves, it’s not a good idea for the world’s richest leaders to talk about ‘food’ and ‘revolution’ in the same breath.

Oh well… Considering ‘food’ is going to be the next planet-saving initiative, why not feed world leaders and billionaire businessmen a plate of poached cockroaches with a side of maggots deep-fried in canola oil? It’s crunchy, full of essential minerals and ‘inclusive’ of cultures that treat insects as a delicacy. If Levy really wants to up the ante, they could add a special of bird-eating spider on a bed of lightly sauteed sea lice. A few Murder Hornet wings lightly dusted over the top would make the perfect appetising dish for budding eco-warrior Instagrammers.

“At COP26 we are using the CORRETTO™ Cup which is both reusable and recyclable. We are encouraging delegates to deposit their used cups at drop points throughout the Campus so that we can collect the cups, wash them, and reuse them again and again. If every attendee at COP26 has two hot drinks a day in a reusable cup, we will have removed over 250,000 cups from our waste stream.”

Which begs the question, why are they letting them have coffee and other hot beverages? Clearly, the comfort of delegates is having a negative impact in an ‘emergency’ situation. COP26 should be treated like a school camp where attendees bring their own cups and fill them at the nearest shared tap. Water is healthy, natural, and sustainable.

Bill Gates is speaking at the conference. Someone should ask him to provide his sustainable ‘crap water’ free of charge where delegates can have a truly immersive experience of our Net Zero future.

“I watched the piles of faeces go up the conveyor belt and drop into a large bin. They made their way through the machine, getting boiled and treated. A few minutes later I took a long taste of the end result: a glass of delicious drinking water,” said Bill Gates. “The water tasted as good as any I’ve had out of a bottle. And having studied the engineering behind it, I would happily drink it every day. It’s that safe.”

Sounds great. Why aren’t there any takers???

Maybe instead of ‘carbon footprint’ labels, the COP26 menu should consider a ‘B.S. rating’ next to its attendees.