At the 26th United Nations conference, hundreds of protesters demonstrate their dissatisfaction with world leaders’ actions on climate change.
Previous Extinction Rebellion protest 2019. ici et ailleurs. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
For 26 years, the United Nations Climate Conference has gathered the world’s leaders to discuss climate change as a global issue. The 2021 climate conference (COP26) was held in Glasgow, Scotland. The United Nations conference in 2015 signed the pivotal Paris Climate agreement. The Paris Agreement was supposed to be a monumental step toward global action on climate change. In reality, it was the first time all countries in the UN acknowledged and agreed to limit global warming. In accordance with the Paris Agreement, each signed country was to bring its own plan to lower emissions and secure its own funds to do so.
The Paris Agreement and the United Nations conference as a whole had maintained global status leading up to the 2021 conference when fears about climate change were mounting among their citizens. Among the world leaders present, 25,000 delegates from 200 countries present at the conference to represent their respective countries.
On Wednesday, November 3, protesters gathered outside the SSE energy building in Glasgow. The protesters were organized by a group called Extinction Rebellion. The climate activist group is an international organization that aims to push governments toward immediate action against climate change. The November 3rd protest was a march against ‘greenwashing,’ when companies and major organizations claim to be eco-friendly but are failing to take tangible action. Five protesters were arrested; two of the arrests took place after police officers were sprayed with paint. However, aside from the few arrests, the majority of the protesters were peaceful and compliant with the police’s requests.
The greenwashing protest took place on the third day of the climate summit when world leaders were gathered to discuss the finances to address global action regarding climate change. A group of investors pledged to commit 130 trillion in private capital to reach the looming net-zero goal. Despite this pledge, activists remained skeptical, as evident by the hundreds that took to the streets.
The United Kingdom hosts the 2021 conference, and the country brings the goal of having the participants commit to net zero emissions by 2050, as first stated in the 2015 Paris Agreement. Notably, this goal falls 25 years short of Extinction Rebellion’s stated demands that greenhouse gas emissions reach net zero by 2025. Extinction Rebellion’s protests respond to the 25 previous conferences failing to deliver on their initiatives, stating via their website that “XR will continue demanding immediate action to tackle the climate and ecological emergency in the run up to, during and beyond COP26.”
Dana Flynn
Dana Flynn is a recent graduate from Tufts University with a degree in English. While at Tufts she enjoyed working on a campus literary magazine and reading as much as possible. Originally from the Pacific Northwest, she loves to explore and learn new things.