Activists from around the world have taken to the stage at COP26 for a “People’s Plenary” session.
The COP26 Coalition organised the event on Friday, with one of the UN climate conference’s halls filled with hundreds of representatives from civil society groups.
As #COP26 draws to a close, inside the COP venue, UN constituencies representing #climatejustice movements stand firm on the just and urgent outcome needed at the People’s Plenary.
Read The People’s COP26 Declaration: https://t.co/IJL80bkd1a
— COP26 Coalition (@COP26_Coalition) November 12, 2021
The People’s COP26 Decision For Climate Justice
The COP26 Coalition has released its declaration for climate justice. It states that:
Climate change already impacts and threatens billions of lives, with billions more on the line: it is those that have done the least to cause climate change that are most impacted, especially women, Black, Indigenous Peoples, and people of colour, peasants and rural people, youth, people with disabilities, local communities and frontline communities.The climate crisis also amplifies the structural inequalities and injustices that have been hardwired into our economic and political systems that have resulted in a spiralling debt crisis, Covid vaccine apartheid and growing inequality and poverty.
It asserts that:
People are tired of waiting for governments to prioritize people and the planet over profits while so many lives are being impacted and lost. We are out of time and out of patience.
And it has produced a list of ten demands that includes “Global North countries pay[ing] their climate debt” and excluding big polluters from the process.
It concludes by stating:
The time for words without action has come and gone. 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 Era of Injustice is over!
Protests Continue
A number of protests are due to take place on the final scheduled day of COP26, though the summit is expected to overrun into the weekend.
The activists at the People’s Plenary are due to march from within the blue zone to meet other groups, who are gathering outside.
A rally is expected to take place in Finnieston Street outside the venue in the afternoon.
Indigenous Peoples organizations rise up at the #COP26 #PeoplesPlenary 📣 to denounce colonialism, the root of the climate crisis.
“I am not going to come to my colonizers for solutions.” ‼️ pic.twitter.com/AjIYW2XK18
— Women & Gender Constituency (@WGC_Climate) November 12, 2021
One of those speaking at the People’s Plenary was Ta’Kaiya Blaney, an indigenous activist from Canada.
She said:
Myself and others have been criminalised by our government. I watched (prime minister) Justin Trudeau pose for pictures with indigenous land defenders, meanwhile land defenders are taken as political prisoners back home.
Mary Church, of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said the meeting was to express “deep frustration” with the climate summit.
She continued:
We are hurtling ever closer to reaching the critical 1.5C threshold. Climate change already impacts and threatens billions of lives.