So what does COP26 mean to you?

If there is a great and resounding agreement amongst the world’s leaders to stop climate change, or at least the ones that decided to turn up in Glasgow, will you look back on the coming two weeks and think, I was there when ‘we’ all agreed to save the world?

That’s the glossy magazine version of it – what I suspect governments will all be hoping for.

Or will you remember it for the travel chaos, the multiple strikes and the sheer inconvenience of it all?

That’s the flip side of the glossy magazine version – more the horror show images that we might all remember while hiding behind the couch.

Here on the west side of Glasgow there is certainly going to be travel chaos.

The complete closure of the Clydeside Expressway, which came into effect at the weekend and will continue throughout the conference, will push traffic further north into the west end, with Dumbarton Road and Great Western Road taking the brunt of the load.

Drivers who think about going through the Clyde Tunnel and along the M8 as a diversionary route will do so in the company of lots more with the same idea, thereby defeating its purpose.

As I write this article the options of going by bus or train may yet be taken off the table, courtesy of strike action, although a bus strike would have the benefit of reducing the traffic congestion.

Some businesses may well prosper, especially pubs and restaurants. All those delegates are going to have to eat and drink somewhere. Others will find themselves on the wrong side of some security fence and struggle – one more body blow on the back of Covid.

So for us locals, the best bit of COP26 advice might be to shop local, as far as you can, and don’t try to travel too far.

Alternately, you could do what quite a few Glaswegians are doing, which is rent out your home for a small fortune and fly off to Tenerife for two weeks.

Check out Airbnb if you don’t believe me – global conferences do have their unlooked for consequences!

But still...we do want this conference to succeed, don’t we? We don’t want the planet to burn. We do want there to be a safe environment for our grand children to grow up in.

So amidst all the chaos of the coming weeks, I do want to be able to look back and think the ‘Glasgow Agreement’ was the one that made the difference to the planet.

If that is the case, I can forgive and forget the chaos of the coming weeks!