Cop26 eco-summit in Glasgow cost taxpayers £250m AND damaged the climate, official figures reveal

The Glasgow climate summit last year cost taxpayers £250 million while increasing the air miles flown by civil servants, it has emerged.

Official figures reveal the staggering amount spent by the Government on hosting the Cop26 conference, including staff, accommodation and security.

Costs for the two-week event totalled £290 million, but £40.5 million was received in sponsorship cash, including £3 million each from Microsoft, National Grid and NatWest.

The Cabinet Office’s annual report insists the UN summit was a success, bringing together 120 world leaders and 38,000 others to ‘tackle the urgent challenge of climate change’.

Pictured: Alok Sharma President of the Cop26 climate summit raises his hands after his speech of the closing plenary, during the Cop26 summit in Glasgow on November 13, 2021

It says that following ‘intense negotiations’ by climate tsar Alok Sharma, 197 countries agreed an ‘historic’ deal to reduce fossil fuels as well as ‘unprecedented initiatives’ to halt deforestation and phase out coal.

But the report also reveals that preparations for the conference, and the G7 world leaders’ summit in Cornwall earlier in 2021, ended up damaging the environment.

Total greenhouse gas emissions by the Government increased to 6,442 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) in 2021-22, three times the 2,030 recorded during the previous year when travel was limited by lockdown, but also higher than the 4,190 recorded before the pandemic.

The report admits: ‘Emissions from domestic flights have increased by 18 per cent. This is driven by increased travel to support the successful delivery of the G7 summit and Cop26.’

Pictured: Alok Sharma President of the Cop26 climate summit at the event in Glasgow

Cabinet ministers and civil servants flew four million miles to other countries last year. ‘The majority of international travel supported the delivery of the G7 summit and Cop26 agenda,’ says the report. Senior Tory MP Sir John Redwood said: ‘I said at the time that Cop26 should be held online. If you want to lecture the rest of the world on using less carbon, you should lead by example.’

He said the cost to the Government of hosting the Glasgow event was ‘extraordinary’, adding: ‘It seems very high for a conference when one of its aims was to save the planet. It looks pretty wasteful.’

Last year the Daily Mail revealed that Mr Sharma had flown to more than 30 countries as he prepared for the summit – and received a special exemption from the hotel quarantine rules in place at the time when he returned from Covid hotspots.

Data published yesterday shows that he continued his jet-setting long after the Glasgow conference ended.

Mr Sharma flew to Turkey, India, Australia, Fiji and New Zealand in July this year, Vietnam in August then Bali, the Netherlands and the US in September, at a cost to taxpayers of £36,196. A Government spokesman said: ‘In November 2021, during a global pandemic, Glasgow hosted more than 40,000 people for the Cop26 climate change summit, the single largest global event the UK has ever hosted.

‘It was crucially important that Cop26 was an inclusive summit, where representatives from governments, civil society, young people and businesses could come together to take action to protect our planet.’

The spokesman added: ‘The UK is proud to have hosted such an historic event, which culminated in nearly 200 countries forging the Glasgow Climate Pact… reaching global agreement to accelerate action on climate this decade.’