Welcome to the Rising Clyde number six, the COP26 Coalition’s newsletter! We have some big announcements to make in this one, so make sure to get comfortable, sign up to our shared calendar and listen to this to remind yourself that land belongs to the people and not to rich landowners. Also, remember to submit any news and resources you have from the climate movement here! 

From the Ground Up: Global Gathering for Climate Justice

Over the two weeks, we have worked hard on the global gathering and are excited to announce that we are open for registration. We had over 160 amazing submissions from across the climate movement, and have asked organisations to cooperate wherever possible to include as many perspectives and contributions as possible in our programme. You can register here.

To make this gathering a success, we will need a lot of hands on deck. We will need teams to

(1) help coordinate the facilitation of sessions, 

(2) help with the technical aspects of the gathering, and

(3) help organise translation and captioning of key sessions.

If you’re able to help with either of these, please message us, and join one of these teams at the next project team meeting on Wednesday 14 October, 1pm-2:30pm. 

Now, please share our event widely across our networks, and bring your family and friends (and enemies) to the gathering. 

Boiling Point

We are going towards the 5th session of our speaker series, “Boiling Point: Everything you ever wanted to know about international climate change negotiations but were too afraid to ask.” where we explore the basics of international climate change politics and the infamous COP. Experts with years of experience working behind the scenes of major summits will share their knowledge of the history and process of the talks as well as the major issues and main players. Boiling Point runs weekly on Thursdays until 22nd October.

Get involved!

In some really exciting news, we had a first call with our newly established Trade Union group last week, creating a space in the Coalition for rank and file union members and organisers to meet, chat and openly discuss ideas and topics around climate change and just transition. If you are a union member, join our mailing list, and join our trade union slack channel. If you’re not a trade union member, you should change this. 

As we are a broad and diverse Coalition with a lot of perspectives and viewpoints on how to best fight for climate justice, we’re going to host a discussion on nature-based solution on 20 October, 1pm-2:30pm, to chat about what they are, and what chances and risks come with them.  Come along!

As the UK still presides over the worst immigration system in Europe and continues to explore options to make it worse, we need to start thinking about how to best support our international allies coming to Scotland for COP. Join the logistics group’s meeting on Visa support to help with this crucial task.

As always: our Comms group needs support. Whether you’re interested in Social Media, Press, or anything else, please join us next Wednesday, 14 October at 10am in our Comms working group. The zoom link will be in here.

Also, here’s a few other events happening across Scotland:

• The amazing Glasgow Calls Out Polluters are campaigning to Kick Out Polluters from COP, and are organising a discussion about this tomorrow at 11am! 

• Our friends at Extinction Rebellion Scotland have this week occupied the Scottish Parliament to call for Scotland to drop Big Oil. Join their campaign to Make the Connections between Finance, Fossil Fuels and Government! 

• To raise money for asylum seekers in Glasgow, Climate Camp Scotland is organising a Webinar on Borders and Climate Justice on Tuesday, 13 October at 6:30pm. Everyone welcome! 

• From 19 November to 1 December, the MockCOP will bring together youth delegates in discussion about climate justice. Find out more here. 

News and Resources 

• It might be rainy in the UK but in Paraguay a state of emergency has been declared as over 5000 wildfires rage across the country. Fires in the Brazilian Amazon rightly made headlines last year but have not been widely reported this year despite a 61% rise in hotspots. 

• You’re probably aware that Exxon is one of the worst companies on Earth. However, this week, it has been revealed that the company has been secretlyplanning for even more carbon emissions. And if you need an illustration on how bad this will be for communities across the world, Exxon’s Mossmorran plant in Scotland has been flaring again this week, looking like a gigantic fireball visible from Edinburgh and beyond.

• Amazingly, that wasn’t the most evil news these past few weeks, as the British Government’s head villain Priti Patel took the opportunity of a pandemic to propose using decommissioned oil rigs as detention centres for migrants. 

• Our pals at Friends of the Earth Scotland, Platform and Greenpeace have published an amazing report on offshore oil and gas workers in the Scottish north sea, surveying 1383 workers about their views on the industry.  Highlighting how insecure and unsafe work in the sector has become, 81.7% of  respondents would consider leaving the oil and gas industry for a job in another sector. At the same time, 91% of respondents never heard about just transition, highlighting how much more work the climate movement has to do. Read the full report here, and have a read about a personal struggle from a worker here. 
• While Nature-Based Solutions sound nice and represent chances for how to tackle climate change, there is also an increasing risk that nature-based solution is used in greenwashing strategies by corporations like Shell, warns the Global Forest Coalition, which can lead to “land grabbing and displacement of communities, human rights violations, freshwater scarcity, biodiversity loss, and many other negative impacts, which are felt disproportionately by women and the most marginalized communities.” 
• What should instead be looked at as a solution are stories like this one from Austria, where a couple of people decided that they themselves can be the solution, and created Austria’s first energy cooperative.   
• In some other amazing news, Ineos Must Fall has occupied a site in Antwerp port, disrupting Ineos’s plan for a new petrochemical plant. 
• If you’re looking for additional heroes in these trying times, we are pleased to present you comrade Attenbro.