Welcome to the Rising Clyde #7, the COP26 Coalition’s newsletter! Take a minute to sign up to our shared calendar before tuning into this edition’s soundtrack…
…and get ready for our Global Gathering!
We’re so excited to finally be able to share our promo video for the Global Gathering.
To make the festival a success, we will need YOUR help to get the word out as far as possible. Please give us a follow, and help us out by liking, commenting and (most importantly!) sharing our upcoming announcements.
Here’s an exclusive preview of some of our confirmed sessions, with many more to follow:
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FEMINISM DURING THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY – with Silvia Federici (feminist theorist and activist), Sabrina Fernandes (Brazillian Activist, Sociologist, Professor, and Youtuber), Veronica Gago (Ni Una Menos, Argentia), Dilar Dirik (Kurdish Women’s Movement), Judith Flores (Assembly of Popular and Diverse Women, Ecuador)
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INDIGENOUS SOLUTIONS TO THE CLIMATE CRISIS – with Tuntiak Katan (Global Alliance of Territorial Communities) Levi Sucre, (Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests) Sonia Guajajara (Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil)
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RED, BLACK AND GREEN NEW DEAL – convened by the Movement for Black Lives, this session seeks to deepen connections between the struggles for Black liberation and for Global Climate Justice. Bringing together Black leaders in North America, Africa and across the African diaspora, we’ll be convening a strategic discussion on how we can leverage this political moment of international uprisings in defence of Black life to unify calls for reparations for colonialism, enslavement and exploitation, ecological and climate debts, as well as what forms of transnational Black solidarity are needed to build towards them.
Get involved!
We are urgently looking for volunteers to support our online gathering with:
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Technical Support (Zoom)
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Online Facilitation (Zoom)
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Social Media Moderation (Slack, Facebook)
Please sign up on this spreadsheet with your availability, and share it with your networks and organisations!
We will host a tech & facilitation training session for all crew members on:
- Monday 2 November at 4:30pm.
- Saturday 7 November at 2pm
Our Trade Union Group is meeting again on November 4th – if you’re a Trade Union member or labour organiser, please join us for a comradely discussion on the climate justice and labour movements, and how we can organise to win. Sign up here for the trade union mailing list, or join a Trade Union today if you’re not already a member!
We are in the process of forming a group for people of colour in the coalition, as well as a group for our young members. If you’re interested in getting involved with either of these, please get in touch!
Our Mobilisations Working Group is meeting again in the first week of November. Join us to discuss how we can take action on the weekend of the G20 meeting, and against the UK government’s Paris Agreement celebration event on December 12th.
Week of Action for a Just and Green Recovery! From 4th-11th November, groups across Scotland will be taking action for a recovery plan that works for the people and the planet. Hundreds of you have already signed up to meet your MSPs as part of the Virtual Lobby for Real Change, and workers will be taking their demands directly to politicians on Wednesday November 4th.. The Just and Green Recovery campaign is backed by nearly 100 organisations from across Scotland, including trade unions, community groups and NGO – find out more on their new website.
News and Resources
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After a great session on “What Climate Negotiations are Really Like”, our speaker series Boiling Point sadly comes to an end this week. All of our previous sessions are now available to watch on our Youtube Channel – please send us any feedback and ideas for future sessions!
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In happy local news, Extinction Rebellion Scotland today blocked the entrances of INEOS Headquarters in Grangemouth! INEOS is Scotland’s worst polluter, circumventing Scotland’s ban on fracking by importing fracked gas from the US, while their multi-billionaire owner Jim Ratcliffe recently moved to Monaco to avoid paying taxes on his profits. Sending strength and solidarity to the activists blocking them!
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This was not the only exciting development in Scotland, where for the first time local residents held a rally against Shell and Exxon’s Mossmorran Gas site, protesting the pollution, noise and flaring from the plant. This coincides with Shell’s latest threat to cut health and safety jobs at the site, making Mossmorran even more dangerous to local communities. You can read more about Mossmorran’s impact here.
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This week, the EU attempted to reform their Common Agricultural Framework to make it less damaging. Sadly, they’ve not quite managed to do that – as Friends of the Earth Europe explain, the Green Deal package and its component parts “fall short of what is needed to tackle the climate and ecological emergency.”
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In Colombia, a huge procession of Indigenous peoples has arrived in Bogota, amid a national strike. The minga brought together tens of thousands of people from all over the country, with leaders asking to meet the President as they demanded the 2016 peace deal to be implemented, proper measures to combat rising COVID-induced poverty, and for their stolen lands to be given back. The President has fled the city.
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A resounding victory for MAS in the recent Bolivian elections means that the extreme right extractivists have been defeated at the ballot box by an incredible antifascist and anti-imperialist mobilisation. We’re in awe of all the campaigners, activists and trade unionists who made this victory happen.
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Thousands-strong protests in Nigeria against police brutality by SARS, the “Special Anti-Robbery Squad, have unfolded into widespread civil unrest against the Nigerian government.
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Japan becomes the latest country to announce a 2050 “net-zero” target. As one of Asia’s leading financiers of coal, Japan’s pledgeshows how meaningless a “net”-zero target can be. Watch this video from Boiling Point on why “Net-Zero” is a great slogan, but a dodgy policy….
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Across the Global South, many movements who fight for climate justice fight for other related causes, including debt cancellation. Last week, they held a global week of action targeting the IMF/World Bank and G20 Finance Ministers meetings.
And as you all know, the US Election is happening very soon. Obviously we don’t know what’s going to happen, but this week we got a glimpse into the timeline where Donald Trump loses and concedes: he’ll come back to Scotland to build a second golf course in Aberdeenshire…
…and we’ll be there to show him exactly what we think of that.