All is right with the world!

‘Lead on, Macduff’, or should it be ‘Slumber on, Biden’? Seeing TV visuals of the president of the world’s saviour country dozing off during a very important discussion at the CoP-26 Meet in Glasgow only acted as a pointer to the somnolence with which the world views the threat of climate change.

This only got further entrenched when TV images served a ringside view of the prime minister of what was once the empire over which the sun never set, also framed catching forty winks at the same summit on global warming.

Little wonder then, that young climate activists have termed these talks as blah, blah and more blah and the United Nations has rapped the commitment of the countries involved.

The scepticism is certainly not misplaced when you learn that a whole galaxy of cars, which even if you employed all your fingers and toes many times over, would not be able to tote up the numbers that accompanied President Biden from the USA to Rome and from there to Glasgow, not to forget the entourage that accompanied him to warm the car seats.

If Covid has shown the way to digital connectivity, you wonder why this whole meeting could not have been conducted online to save on the carbon emissions of jet planes and motorcades of leaders from across the world.

But then again, how would they, who are expected to show us the way, have been able to throw coins into the Trevi Fountain in Rome, to wish away the harmful impact of climate change?! Did we hear somebody say, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride?

Of course, the Indian Premier has clearly shown the way by projecting zero emissions by 2070. Hurrah, not just the Coronials (those born after Corona) but the rest of the present population included are guaranteed to be around to see this happen. With the change in the Air Quality Index across the country, after Diwali, this is a given.

But then, why has the country’s richest man decided to invest and move into a palatial house in the UK? Does he know something that we don’t?

Surely, it cannot be the fear of having to trudge up 27 flights of stairs to the penthouse at ‘Antilla’? Is there anxiety over the nine elevators in the building shutting down all at once, on account of the power outage resulting from the coal shortage in India? Sounds as implausible as the recent threat of an attack on the fortress-like building.

So, was the anxiety just over the Papers that might pop out of Pandora’s Box? It may be easier to stomp down on them in Old Blighty, which is now blighted with the influx of India’s absconding millionaires and trillionaires. Fair is foul and foul is fair and all our wealth seems to land there. The proximity to safe tax havens that the UK is turning a blind eye to, is giving a whole new meaning to the “ease of doing business” jargon.

Commitments to climate change from politicians may well be like election promises. You never know if they will ever come to pass. Besides, today’s lot have become the masters of deflection. If not using the NCB to go after the possession of opium, or the lack thereof, on the basis of WhatsApp chats, they are equally adept at administering “the opium of the masses”, guaranteed to put the populace in a state of delusion.

They need no longer worry about day to day matters like economic hardship and the rising price of fuels, cooking gas etc. If and when there is a possibility of pushback at a bypoll, just administer some more of the soporific stuff, which is guaranteed to send people into a state of nirvanic bliss. Add to this a string of chants, and it will have them reach out to one another with brotherly love or its opposite.

If all this still does not yield the desired result, there is nothing quite like a hug-o-fest on the international arena, to indicate that God is in His Heaven and all is right with the world.

(The writer is a freelance journalist based in Bengaluru)

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