A knife-edge quest: Lord of the Rings resonates at Cop28 climate summit

Elijah Wood, as Frodo, addresses the Council of Elrond about the fate of Middle-earth in the LOTR film The Fellowship of the Ring. Photograph: AP

Back in the 1960s, no self-respecting hippy would be seen dead without a well-thumbed copy of the Lord of the Rings. Along with a copy of Sgt Pepper and the Tibetan Book of the Dead, it came to epitomise the counterculture.

Times change. Tolkien’s most prominent fan at present is Giorgia Meloni, the most rightwing prime minister Italy has had since the second world war. That has set alarm bells clanging.