It's easy to be cynical about next week's COP26 Gabfest, but we could all be winners if global leaders successfully optimise for a cleaner decarbonised environment and a global growth economy based on new clean technologies, but we need time for the transition from fossil fuels. If we fail to do so, the alternatives are bleak.

From Sunday the Good, the Bad, the Ugly and Politicians meet in Glasgow for the 26th United Nations "Conference of Parties" on Climate Change. It might just be the most important gab-fest of global leaders in the whole of human history – so I am told. So far, the biggest winners are Scottish Railway workers. They were threatening strike action through the conference, and they've just accepted a 2.5% bribe pay-rise to return to work.

Ultimately.. we might all be winners…

I should stop being cynical about the COP26 conference. I guess I just have a problem with virtue-signalling politicians and unelected commentors telling us how to live our lives and telling me I can't eat steak. These same folk will be furiously negotiating compromises on how much longer they can keep building coal-fired power stations. I don't mind that – as long as the coal is part of a short-term transition strategy.

As a trader and investor, I've weighed up the evidence and concluded the climate science predicting global warming is more likely than not to be correct. I'd much rather the scientists are wrong, but common sense and the risk profile dictates we should go with a hedging strategy; a "perfect preparation prevents piss-poor performance" approach to mitigating climate change. (I take the same approach to my passion for offshore sailing – prepare for every eventuality, no matter how remote. Assume stuff is going to break. (Generally, a good rule of life is buying an expensive piece of kit to fix a specific breakage means that breakage will never occur. If you don't buy it – the thing will break.))