The environmentally friendly future, as it can already be experienced at the World Climate Conference in Glasgow, looks pretty joyless, at least from a culinary point of view. The fast food outlets in the exhibition halls on the former shipyard on the Clyde River show not only the prices on their menus, but also the carbon footprint. It is not clear to which product weight the information relates, but it is clear that the ecological footprint of a sausage with 0.7 kilograms of carbon dioxide is particularly bad and is therefore a deterrent. It doesn't look much better with shredded chicken weighing 0.5 kg or with Scottish smoked salmon weighing 0.4 kg. It tastes great, of course, but you should be ashamed of it when you eat it - and best not be caught. Who wants to do everything righthe has to order candied beetroot with broccoli (0.2 kilograms) or ideally the Scottish barley broth (0.1). At the latest when eating, everyone of the more than 20,000 congress participants understands: hard times are breaking.

Christian Geinitz

Business correspondent in Berlin

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Of course there are also bright spots.

One of the exhibitors is presenting an electrically powered racing car that is obviously used in "Formula E".

And at the Scottish pavilion, Hochländer will be serving a guaranteed greenhouse gas-neutral single malt whiskey.

The nice barman cannot explain how the drink is distilled, but after two or three glasses everyone here confirms that climate protection is great fun.

At the stand next door, which is largely orphaned, the Turkish delegation stirs a little lost in their tea glasses.

Your President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan did not travel to Glasgow, allegedly out of security concerns.

Other flawless democrats have also stayed away, including Russia's Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping from China.

Biden criticizes Russia and China

The American President Joe Biden, who like most of the other heads of state and government traveled from the G20 summit in Rome to Glasgow, immediately exploited the absence of his Eastern colleagues for a broad side in terms of climate policy and probably also geopolitics.

The fight against global warming, which the conference serves, is a "gigantic affair, and they just ran away," says Biden towards Moscow and Beijing.

He describes Xi's absence in particular as a “big mistake”, since climate protection is the central issue of mankind and at the same time requires control and the assumption of responsibility.

Avoiding it does not fit with the leadership role that Beijing is seeking.

As expected, China and Russia, who were also not present in Rome, reject the allegations. Xi's statement that he does not want to be infected with Covid-19 is not even far-fetched. Because in Glasgow it quickly becomes clear that the mega-conference harbors great risks. Nobody knows how big they are, because there are no numbers of how many people tested positive or were infected here. A prominent example is the mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, who had to go to Scottish quarantine after a positive test result.

The organizers do everything to minimize the dangers and to lull the participants into safety. After all, the congress called COP26 had to be postponed last year due to the pandemic. Regardless of the vaccination status, every visitor is given a rapid corona test for every day they are here and are only allowed to enter the premises with a negative result. Foreigners also have to transfer 68 pounds for a PCR test before entering the country, which they have to use after two days in the country and send to the laboratory. All of this sounds sensible, but it doesn't work. The codes on the rapid test packs can be used to report negative results to the National Health Service without having even taken samples. And if the Royal Mail does not manage to deliver the pre-paid PCR test on time,the two-day period simply expires. Incidentally, the identical test is available completely free of charge at the COP issuing points and is easy to take away.