THE staggering disconnect of the elite from the public has truly become apparent just two days into COP26.

Behind a ring of steel in the SEC campus, most leaders were ferried in by heavily guarded convoys of electric vehicles and most of them didn’t show their face on the exhibition floor.

Meanwhile, thousands of delegates outside the gates were battered by the ceaseless wind of the Clydeside for hours waiting to get in.

We have heard how over 100 countries signed a pledge to stop deforestation, and over 80 who signed up to the joint US-EU plan to drop methane emissions by 30% by 2030.

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But, there are 197 countries involved in the summit - these agreements are barely reaching half way, what is going on behind closed doors?

Leaders like to lecture the public on reducing, reusing, recycling, and then catch a flight to London due to “time constraints” because the life of the Prime Minister is so much more important than our own.

The Unionist press fawned over the Duchess of Rothesay wearing a coat with old buttons sewn on from another outfit at the VVIP event for leaders at Kelvingrove on Monday.

The National:

Royal reporters fawned over Camilla's upcycled coat

Camilla, my Gran and plenty of other people have been doing that for a long time. It’s called saving a few pennies when you're on a low income. I doubt the Windsors have hand-me downs.

The fact that the Royal Family has a combined carbon footprint of a massive 3810 tonnes a year, whilst the average person in the UK’s is only 10 tonnes, was obviously not mentioned.

Neither was the Queen’s constant badgering of Holyrood to let her bypass critical climate change legislation.

Despite this, and the fact that she wasn’t even there, Liz managed to be on the front page of most of the UK newspapers on Tuesday calling for leaders to “save our fragile planet”. Clearly, she is not including herself in this plea.

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And never mind, Kate wore a blue jacket dress and a pair of shoes the Daily Mail claims she has worn 12 times before. She’s a revolutionary!

And what about the actual policy coming out of COP? Does it go far enough?

Biden’s plan to take on the oil and gas industry through his methane commitment is a move that will have good, much needed, short term impacts, but without the trio of big methane producers - Russia, India and China - signing on it remains to be seen how much of an impact it will have.

And here in the UK? There hasn’t been a single utterance of the word Cambo from the UK Government. They are no doubt biding their time until the conference is over before giving the massive oil field near Shetland the go-ahead.

The National:

The Queen's virtual speech made most front pages on Tuesday

Two days in and there is a vivid disconnect from what the public think needs to be done, and what leaders are truly willing to commit to do.

Yes, they’re happy to raise money to give to projects and are encouraging private finance to invest, but it just doesn’t go far enough. Jeff Bezos dropping $2bn sounds like a lot, but it isn’t, and they just keep getting away with it.

That amount of cash is probably short change to Bezos, and any comments from him about deforestation or the environment should be taken with a hefty pinch of salt - this is a man who flew a rocket into space during a climate crisis.

And, not only that, it was a for-profit rocket for the richest of the rich to fly off and no doubt start a new colony once they’ve ravaged our planet.

It all feels as if leaders are just sticking a plaster on a gaping wound, and hoping they won’t be around when it comes flying off and plunges us all into climate chaos.

READ MORE: COP26: Nicola Sturgeon joins leaders in call for gender equality in climate policy

I’ve been more inspired by the two German children who abseiled over the bridge near the campus to hang a banner which read "humanity is failing" than any of the speeches I heard on the main stage.

And humanity is failing, our leaders are failing us, if we don’t find some real solutions. There has been more focus on electric vehicles than there has been about active travel, like cycling, or public transport.

We need a complete upheaval of our transport system, there are too many cars on the road. Replacing them with electric ones isn’t going to fix the issue, it has to be a societal move.

We need to have affordable, clean, easy to access public transport, with an oyster card like system that the Scottish Government has no recourse to deny is possible now.

After all delegates were given a free pass across the public transport network, something Glaswegians have been calling for for a long time.

Activists like Greta Thunberg, Extinction Rebellion and Greenpeace have been campaigning and shouting from the rooftops that we need radical change, marching through the streets of Glasgow and even almost-illegally sailing up the Clyde.

Whether or not what they have to say will be truly heard behind the temporary gated walls of Fort Knox (COP26) remains to be seen, but I wouldn’t bet on it.