For Peace News, I should say something constructive, something that encourages ongoing political engagement. But there was something about the Pilgrimage for COP26 that encouraged a different sort of engagement; less constructive in a clear-cut way.
After all, the pilgrimage arrived in Glasgow just before COP26 began and, while some of us stayed on to engage with COP26, most of us went home.
First the facts. We walked from Dunbar to Glasgow as a lead-in to the…
The policing of the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow led to many breaches of human rights. These included: kettling (surrounding protesters as a form of temporary imprisonment), excessive force, racial discrimination, intrusive surveillance and intimidation and harassment of locals, protesters and independent legal observers.
Those are the findings of a new report, Respect or Repression, compiled by Netpol and the Article 11 Trust. The report is based on evidence from over…
We’ve been privileged in Glasgow during COP26 to have the Minga Indígena delegation of Indigenous leaders from across the American continent.
They have eloquently shared their experiences, fears and hopes alongside a clarion call for global unity and action. And woven through their sharing, like writing through seaside rock, has been song and dance as well as the holding of reflective and connective spaces.
They have called on us in the Western world to recognise that we are…
Saleemul Huq, Bangladesh:
As far as I’m concerned, it is a failure. Absolute failure.... It’s a death sentence for the poorest people on the planet.
And not only that, the polluters are saying: ‘To hell with you, we don’t care, we’re not going to give you a penny.’
… We’re not giving up, but we are describing this COP as an abject failure because it hasn’t been able to rise to the occasion of dealing with loss and damage.
It doesn’t matter what else they do. That…
‘Climate change is the crisis of our time. Its intensifying impacts are affecting millions of people around the world, the health of our planet, and it is driving species extinction. It is disproportionately affecting the people and communities globally who have contributed the least to creating this planetary emergency.’
Those are the opening words of ‘the People’s Demands for Climate Justice’, a statement issued in 2018 by the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice. (The Global…
This is a small sample of what happened in Glasgow during the COP26 climate talks! Almost all these events were organised by the COP26 Coalition, a UK-based climate justice coalition bringing together environment and development NGOs, trade unions, grassroots community campaigns, faith groups, youth groups, migrant and racial justice networks and more. Behind the scenes, the coalition also: ran a visa support service; mobilised people across Scotland to open their homes for a Homestay…
You may not know this, but there was a whole 14-paragraph section of the Glasgow agreement dealing with climate-related ‘loss and damage’.
The Guardian reported that this was ‘perhaps the most bitterly fought section of all’.
The phrase ‘loss and damage’ first appeared when the original UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was being drawn up in 1991.
The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) asked for an international insurance pool to be created to ‘…
India was not the climate villain of COP26.
Far from claiming the right to use coal endlessly, India apparently proposed in Glasgow that there should be a global plan for phasing its use down – as long as that was part of a bigger plan for all fossil fuels be phased out, in a just way.
There are two important aspects there: there has to be a plan for dealing with all fossil fuels and they have to be phased out in a just way.
The Glasgow summit in…
XR Scotland is asking all XR rebels coming to COP26 from outside Scotland to live by a ‘Rebel Agreement’. Here are three of the five points:
1) ‘We will be led by, listen to, learn from, and consult with communities at the front lines of the climate and ecological crisis: those who bear the least responsibility and suffer the greatest consequences, including Indigenous peoples, vulnerable nations of the Global South, and young people everywhere.Most of us aren’t going to COP26, but for those who are thinking about it, here’s some information that may be useful.
Walking to Glasgow
A+E (an eco-art group based at St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh) are organising a Pilgrimage for COP26, ‘a walk and a learning journey’, from Dunbar to Glasgow from 17 – 31 October. Participating organisations include: Deep Time Walk Project; Interfaith Edinburgh, Glasgow and Scotland; John Muir’s Birthplace; North Light Arts and…
Whether or not you’re going to Glasgow, here are some actions you can take for climate justice this year.
You can join or set up a COP26 Coalition local hub (see p1) and take action on 6 November: cop26coalition.org There are #DefundClimateChaos protests on 29 October, mostly in London at the time of going to press: defundclimatechaos.uk You – and your group – can sign this petition asking COP26 to…
The COP26 Coalition has called a Global Day of Action for Climate Justice for Saturday 6 November, halfway through the COP26 climate negotiations in Glasgow.
They are calling on people to either come to Glasgow for a national demonstration or to take action nearer to home.
There will be a People’s Summit for Climate Justice from 7 – 10 November.
The COP26 Coalition is a UK-based civil society coalition of groups and individuals mobilising around climate justice during…
