This weekend the vanguard of an army of up to 15,000 people will fly to the remote Indonesian island of Bali to talk about saving humanity from the worst ravages of human-induced climate change by cutting carbon gas emissions.

To many people that may seem a total contradiction in terms given that aviation emissions are far worse for the atmosphere than those at ground level and that video conferencing is now readily available.

Add to that the fact that the Bali meeting of United Nations environment ministers and their support staff will in fact do almost nothing concrete to tackle the climate crisis, with even the most optimistic observers suggesting that the best outcome will be to set the agenda for more talks, and the contradiction becomes almost tangible.

But while proponents accept that it would appear somewhat absurd to emit the carbon equivalent of a small country simply to agree to talk about talks on cutting those very same emissions, they argue that nothing yet invented beats face to face, body language to body language meetings late into the night in stuffy rooms to broker a deal.

As one observer remarked recently: “You don’t do backroom deals in video conferences”.

That may well be true. But it does seem to be a sad reflection on humanity that it’s future still relies on such brinksmanship.

Is that really the right signal to be sending to a public who are already sceptical about the massive gulf between the political rhetoric urging action by all and the actual reality of tackling what is described as the worst crisis to face humanity?