Demonstrators at COP26 Demand More Action from Leaders on Climate

Summary

After the COP26 cli­mate sum­mit in Glasgow, over 100,000 pro­test­ers, mostly young peo­ple, marched in the city demand­ing more action on the cli­mate cri­sis, with sim­i­lar events held world­wide. The cli­mate deal agreed upon at COP26 includes reduc­ing emis­sions, increas­ing cli­mate finance for devel­op­ing coun­tries, and phas­ing down coal use, caus­ing dis­ap­point­ment and resent­ment among some par­tic­i­pants.

In the wake of the COP26 cli­mate sum­mit held in Glasgow, thou­sands of pro­test­ers ral­lied in the city streets demand­ing world lead­ers to com­mit to more mea­sures to tackle the cli­mate cri­sis the planet is fac­ing.

According to the orga­niz­ers of the protest, more than 100,000 demon­stra­tors, mostly young peo­ple, marched through the city despite the rainy weather.

“Droughts and floods have left noth­ing behind for the peo­ple,” cli­mate activist Vanessa Nakate told the crowd in Glasgow. ​“Tens of thou­sands of peo­ple are suf­fer­ing cat­a­strophic lev­els of food inse­cu­rity.”

“We must demand that our lead­ers treat the cli­mate cri­sis like a cri­sis,” she added. ​“We remain hope­ful. Another world is pos­si­ble.”

More than 250 sim­i­lar events were staged in coun­tries around the world, includ­ing Belgium, the Netherlands, South Korea, Indonesia, Pakistan and France.

“We are tak­ing to the streets across the world this week­end to push gov­ern­ments from cli­mate inac­tion to cli­mate jus­tice,” said Asad Rehman, a spokesper­son for the COP Coalition.

The pro­test­ers in Glasgow were joined by hun­dreds of rep­re­sen­ta­tives of var­i­ous global social groups, includ­ing farm­ers, indige­nous peo­ple, aca­d­e­mics and envi­ron­men­tal non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions, who left the COP26 sum­mit before com­ple­tion as a dec­la­ra­tion of dis­ap­proval.

“COP26 is a per­for­mance,” Ta’Kaiya Blaney, an indige­nous activist from the Tla A’min Nation near British Columbia, told the audi­ence before leav­ing the meet­ing. ​“It is an illu­sion con­structed to save the cap­i­tal­ist econ­omy rooted in resource extrac­tion and colo­nial­ism.”

Meanwhile, after two weeks of nego­ti­a­tions in COP26, almost 200 nations agreed on a cli­mate deal to reduce emis­sions in order to adapt to the impacts of cli­mate change.

The deal stip­u­lates that big pol­luters have to present strong emis­sions-cut­ting plans by the end of 2022 and urges the rich nations of the world to ​“at least dou­ble their col­lec­tive pro­vi­sion of cli­mate finance for adap­ta­tion to devel­op­ing coun­tries.”

The deal also con­tains pro­vi­sions to ​“phase down” the use of unabated coal, the main sin­gle source of CO2 emis­sions, instead of com­pletely elim­i­nat­ing it as orig­i­nally intended, caus­ing resent­ment from some of the par­tic­i­pants.

“We do not need to phase down, but to phase out,” said Simonetta Sommaruga, Switzerland’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive. ​“We are dis­ap­pointed both about the process and the last-minute change. This will not bring us closer to 1.5 ºC [the accepted global tem­per­a­ture increase] but will make it more dif­fi­cult to reach.”

• Euronews
• The Guardian
• Business Insider