Dear friends,

We did it. We mobilised over 100,000 people to march in Glasgow, with over 300 demonstrations taking place across the world on the same day.

This is all thanks to every single one of you who organised mobilised and spread the word.

But as they say, this is just the beginning. Our People’s Summit for #ClimateJustice is well underway with 200 free sessions in Glasgow and online. We’ve had over 12,000 registrations. Our Movement Assemblies continue each evening, feeding back from the COP26 process and providing space for reaction, discussion and strategising.

For the latest photos and videos provided by our Collective Coverage featuring the People’s Summit and Global Day of Action see or join our Telegram Channel https://t.me/COPCOLLAB26News

Global Day of Action

Demonstrations demanding Climate Justice have been taking place in every corner of the world. There have been over 100 actions and protests in the UK alone. Another 300 have taken place worldwide, with people taking action on every continent, from large protests in cities to smaller actions elsewhere. And yesterday, we have learnt about the wave of Climate Justice actions happening across Asia, with reports of hundreds of actions across seven Asian countries.

London saw more than 25,000 marching through the streets while Birmingham had one of its biggest protests ever. Other cities also had large turnouts and many smaller actions and protests took place in towns and villages across the UK.

In Glasgow – despite the driving wind and rain – over 100,000 people marched across the city. The demonstration culminated with a rally. Speakers representing Indigenous and MAPA communities (Most Affected People and Areas) as well as trade unions and other climate justice campaigners addressed the huge crowd.

Our message is clear. We demand that governments move from climate inaction to climate justice. We won’t tolerate warm words and long-term targets anymore. We want action now. 

Asad Rehman, executive director of War and Want and a spokesperson for the COP26 Coalition, said:

“Today, the people who have been locked out of this climate summit have had their voices heard – and those voices will be ringing in the ears of world leaders as we enter the second week of  negotiations. The climate crisis has resulted from our broken, unequal societies and economies. We must transform our global economies into ones that protect both people and our planet instead of profit for a few.”

Speaking at the rally, Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner, the Marshall Islands Climate Envoy to the United Nations, said:

“We need the biggest emitters to be held responsible. We need financing to implement the solutions we are currently developing ourselves through our National Adaptation Plan. We contribute 0.00005% of the world’s global emissions – we did nothing to contribute to this crisis, and we should not have to pay the consequences. We need to keep up the pressure that COP26 doesn’t allow offsets or endanger human rights and the rights of indigenous people.”

The People’s Summit

The People’s Summit has been created to centre and amplify the voices of the most marginalised, of those hit hardest by climate change, and of the people resisting and organising for change. The summit brings together movements from across the world to discuss, learn and strategise for system change together from the ground up.

On the first day, we hosted 43 in-person events and 19 digital events, from film screenings to panel discussions and workshops, as well as providing numerous spaces and opportunities dedicated to well-being for those on the ground here in Glasgow.

Highlights included an event putting the COP process on trial: The People vs the UNFCCC: a people’s tribunal on the United Nations Framework Convention in Climate Change. Panelists included Lumumba Di-Aping, former chief negotiator for G77 and China countries, and Pablo Solón, former chief negotiator for Bolivia. Over 40 children came along to the family sessions, and the Theatre of the Oppressed Performance ‘Let Them Eat Cake’ by Glasgow migrant-justice group MORE (Migrants Organising for Rights & Empowerment) was met with standing ovations.

Yesterday’s highlights included a celebration of the life of legendary Australian Jack Mundey, union leader and environmental activist, and of his strategic, political brilliance in leading the Green Bans movement. An international panel with trade unionists discussed fighting for a just transition and organising around unions, new industries, class, green jobs, retrofits and neoliberal climate schemes. Meanwhile, the Our Time is Now event brought together speakers from across our global movements. Other popular sessions included Uproot the cis-tem: queer ecology as climate justice, Defending old growth forests: Indigenous rights & land titles, and Occupations and Autonomous Zones on the front line of the climate crisis.

People’s Summit programme coordinator Jana Ahlers said:

“To rewire the system, you have to understand it. To deliver justice, you have to guarantee that all people are around the table. As world leaders meet to decide who will be sacrificed, who will escape and who will make a profit from this crisis, the People’s Summit brings together Indigenous peoples, bus drivers, filmmakers, refugees, pilots, farmers, feminists, forest dwellers, artists, doctors, anti-racists and climate justice activists to create a convergence space which centres on those excluded from COP26, makes the connections between all our struggles and shows that we the people already have all the solutions to this crisis.”

See the full programme including the online digital programme

Register here

Movement Assemblies

The Movement Assemblies have been running each evening alongside the COP26 process and will continue past the People’s Summit until the end of the week. The daily discussion themes have mirrored the COP26 Presidential agenda. Previous sessions have included Economic Justice, Work and Unions, and the Feminist Movement Assembly.

Inside the COP26 official process, developing countries have been expressing their deep frustration over the unwillingness of developed countries to take seriously their commitments on climate finance or to acknowledge their failure to deliver on previous commitments. Wealthy nations are still far from achieving their annual US$100 billion commitment. In particular, and as the impacts of the climate crisis intensify, developing countries are deeply frustrated about the lack of seriousness regarding reparations for unavoidable loss and damage and associated trauma. Developing countries are also insistent that they are owed climate finance not just for mitigation measures (to reduce emissions) but also for increasingly vital adaption measures.

Yesterday’s assembly addressed these issues, focusing on Climate Reparations and Loss and Damage. Powerful speeches came from campaigners including Harjeet Singh from Climate Action Network International (CAN-I). He spoke about how the UNFCCC has failed to provide any action on loss and damage and that nothing moves on the inside of COP until pressure is felt from the streets. He also commended the Global Day of Action, saying that negotiations had amped up after hundreds of thousands mobilised to march.

“The loss and damage we are seeing today is the result of 30 years of inaction. And now there are devastating floods in Europe, wildfires everywhere… Everyone is suffering and they cannot continue to play the divisive game: pitting countries against each other.”

Colette Pichon Battle, climate activist and lawyer, spoke about how climate reparations are central to Climate Justice. Reparations would undo the philosophy of extraction which has allowed great wrongs, from the imperial slave trade to today’s fossil fuel extraction. If we win reparations, we change the world.

“Reparations is not just money: its policy and agreement that this will never happen again. It is an apology and an acknowledgement that what you have done is wrong… It’s time for us to start changing our words from handouts to justice. Reparations belong to the people. This is not just about money – this is about accountability. If we don’t start changing the way we think about accountability, we will just make the same system.”

The first report-back session of each assembly – where commentary is made on the COP26 process and agenda – is live-streamed daily on our Youtube and Facebook channels.

17:00 daily at Adelaide’s Place, Bath Street, Glasgow (see COVID entry requirements)

Daily Briefing – Inside Outside

Our short daily news video Inside Outside is published each morning and provides a quick update on the previous day’s themes and a snapshot of the protests in Glasgow. Hosted by Sabrina Fernandes and Iain Bruce, the videos are posted to our social channels each morning.

Collective Coverage

We’ve been working with Midia Ninja from Brazil to launch a collective media coverage project to make material from the COP26 mobilisation available to the movements. Based on the Telegram messaging app, volunteers are contributing photographs and videos of events, protests and actions. This material is then published for all on our #COPCOLLAB26 News Channel https://t.me/COPCOLLAB26News with translation into Spanish and Portuguese provided by volunteers. The material is available for use or reuse under Creative Commons as long as the credit to the producer is made.

Read more about Collective Coverage.Join Collective Coverage by filling in this form.

Digital Rally

The COP26 Coalition digital global rally brought together voices of leading campaigners and activists from across the world is available to watch here

COP26 Coalition