HUNDREDS of activists have walked out of COP26 branding it a failure as police thwarted two protesters who tried to break in.
Delegates sang and chanted as they marched through the climate summit venue in Glasgow to join a demonstration outside.
Two men tried to climb the perimeter fence and turnstiles to get in but were immediately stopped by police.
Many activists carried red ribbons representing the red lines they said the summit had crossed by failing to deliver urgent action to limit global warming.
The protest followed civil society groups delivering the “People’s Declaration for Climate Justice”, which said: “The time for words without action has come and gone.”
It added: “We no longer have the luxury of time to sit back and allow governments and private interests to destroy our future.
“Scientific predictions are increasingly dire; it is not hyperbolic to assert that the very future of humanity depends on the outcomes of these negotiations.
"Governments must immediately heed the growing demands of those already facing crisis and those who will face crisis and bravely reimagine our world in a way that guarantees everyone the right to live with dignity and in harmony with our planet.”
The activists paraded through the inner Blue Zone on the north bank of the Clyde to meet a rally hosted by Extinction Rebellion Scotland and Fridays for Future Scotland.
Ta’Kaiya Blaney, an indigenous activist from Canada, said: "COP26 is a performance.
“It is an illusion constructed to save the capitalist economy rooted in resource extraction and colonialism. I didn’t come here to fix the agenda - I came here to disrupt it."
Kavita Naidu from the Gender and Women constituency said: “These leaders continue to fail us because they just don’t have what it takes to do what needs to be done.”
Mary Church, of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said the protest meeting was to express “deep frustration” with the climate summit.
She said: “We are hurtling ever closer to reaching the critical 1.5C threshold. Climate change already impacts and threatens billions of lives.”
Jason Boberg of the Disability Caucus said: “People with disabilities are on the frontlines of climate change. Disabled people are literally left behind to die. This is a choice governments are making. There is no climate justice without accessibility.”
At the rally outside the venue, activists expressed their anger at the pace of progress.
Nayara Castiglioni Amaral, 29, a member of the Brazilian climate group Engajamundo, said: “It was such an important COP, but it was not different from any of the others.
“It was promises, it’s all ‘blah, blah blah’ really.They’re not making any progress in the text.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel