Another “climate summit,” another opportunity for the super-rich elites to put their hypocrisy on full display. This time it’s the UN’s COP26 meeting in Glasgow, Scotland, and the leading in-your-face hypocrites are Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, with Prince Charles thrown in for good measure.
Bezos and his girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez, arrived in Glasgow a day early to meet with Charles ahead of COP26, reported the Daily Mail. While COP26, like most other climate conferences, is virtually certain to demand worldwide cuts in carbon-dioxide emissions that would cripple economic development in many countries, Bezos and Sanchez seemed unconcerned about the tons of carbon they were emitting as they flew into Glasgow on Bezos’ $65-million GulfStream jet. Nor were they bothered by the roughly 40-minute drive from Glasgow to Dumfries House, a Scottish country home “that the Prince of Wales had renovated as part of the Prince’s Trust before reopening it to the public in 2012,” wrote the paper.
Bezos posted a photo on social media of himself, Sanchez, and Charles in the drawing room of Dumfries House with this caption: “The Prince of Wales has been involved in fighting climatechange and protecting our beautiful world for five decades — far longer than most. We had a chance to discuss these important issues on the eve of #COP26 — looking for solutions to heal our world, and how the @BezosEarthFund can help.”
In fact, Bezos is so worried that carbon emissions are going to destroy the planet that, two days earlier, he was in Turkey, where he took a 120-mile round trip by helicopter to attend the birthday party Gates, who is also attending COP26, threw for himself aboard a superyacht. According to the Daily Mail, Gates, who turned 66 on Thursday, invited 50 people to the party and “transported his guests by helicopter from his $2million-a-week rental yacht ‘Lana’ to the Sea Me Beach club in Fethiye.”
“The jet fuel used to power helicopters emits 21.095 pounds of carbon dioxide per gallon burned, and helicopters travel approximately 10.75 miles per gallon,” noted the newspaper. Using those figures, Bezos’ trip alone emitted 235 pounds of carbon into the atmosphere. Add to that the fact that both Bezos and Gates were staying on superyachts that together emit 38 tons of carbon per day, and Gates’ self-indulgent shindig probably did more damage to the environment — as climate alarmists would have it — in one day than some small countries do in a month.
Prince Charles, meanwhile, took a private plane to Rome Sunday to tell the G20 summit something most attendees surely already believed, namely that the COP26 conference is “quite literally” the “last chance saloon” to save the planet. (How many times have we heard that before?)
The prince said world leaders have an “overwhelming responsibility to generations yet unborn” to do something to stop so-called climate change. And to show he was doing his part, he hopped back aboard his private jet and flew to Glasgow, spewing carbon all the way.
Bezos, Gates, and Charles aren’t alone in their hypocrisy. Numerous other movers and shakers, including U.S. President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, also arrived in Glasgow by private aircraft. Wrote the Daily Mail:
The jets arriving in Scotland on Sunday caused [an] extraordinary traffic jam which forced empty planes to fly 30 miles to find space to park. Conservative estimates suggest the fleet jets arriving for COP26 will blast out 13,000 tons of carbon dioxide in total.
Other private jets blasted in to Scotland from destinations including Stockholm, Rome, London and Brussels — which are all served by regular commercial routes. The majority of the planes were hired from rental firms, making it difficult to work out who was on board.
There was so much air traffic that some jets dropped off VIPs at Glasgow Airport and then flew 30 miles to nearby Prestwick due to a shortage of parking. Some also landed in Edinburgh, before presumably traveling by land.
Once the attendees made their way to the summit, “side streets around #COP26 [were] choked up with chauffeur-driven cars and vans, many with their engines idling,” tweeted Ciaran Jenkins of London’s Channel 4 News. “Interesting look for a climate conference.”
