By SETH BORENSTEIN and FRANK JORDANS
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Climate activists march through the streets of Glasgow, Scotland, Friday, Nov. 5, 2021 which is the host city of the COP26 U.N. Climate Summit. The protest was taking place as leaders and activists from around the world were gathering in Scotland's biggest city for the U.N. climate summit, to lay out their vision for addressing the common challenge of global warming. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
Supporters of Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg shout as she goes on the stage of a demonstration in Glasgow, Scotland, Friday, Nov. 5, 2021 which is the host city of the COP26 U.N. Climate Summit. The protest was taking place as leaders and activists from around the world were gathering in Scotland's biggest city for the U.N. climate summit, to lay out their vision for addressing the common challenge of global warming. (AP Photo/Jon Super)
Indigenous people from Brazil speak from the stage during a demonstration in Glasgow, Scotland, Friday, Nov. Amazon tribal leader and climate activists Kreta Kaingang speaks during a demonstration in , 2021 which is the host city of the COP26 U.N. Climate Summit. The protest was taking place as leaders and activists from around the world were gathering in Scotland's biggest city for the U.N. climate summit, to lay out their vision for addressing the common challenge of global warming. (AP Photo/Jon Super)
GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — Young people both inside and outside of the United Nations climate talks are telling world leaders to hurry up and get it done, that concrete measures to avoid catastrophic warming can’t wait.
Ashley Lashley, a 22-year-old from Barbardos who is on her country’s climate negotiation team in Glasgow, thought about how to communicate the need for urgency during a session on carbon trading. As she listened to other delegates debate the intricate and intractable topic that has baffled negotiators for more than six years, a phrase popped into her head: ’“blah-blah-blah.”
Supporters of Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg shout as she goes on the stage of a demonstration in Glasgow, Scotland, Friday, Nov. 5, 2021 which is the host city of the COP26 U.N. Climate Summit. The protest was taking place as leaders and activists from around the world were gathering in Scotland's biggest city for the U.N. climate summit, to lay out their vision for addressing the common challenge of global warming. (AP Photo/Jon Super)
Indigenous people from Brazil speak from the stage during a demonstration in Glasgow, Scotland, Friday, Nov. Amazon tribal leader and climate activists Kreta Kaingang speaks during a demonstration in , 2021 which is the host city of the COP26 U.N. Climate Summit. The protest was taking place as leaders and activists from around the world were gathering in Scotland's biggest city for the U.N. climate summit, to lay out their vision for addressing the common challenge of global warming. (AP Photo/Jon Super)
GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — Young people both inside and outside of the United Nations climate talks are telling world leaders to hurry up and get it done, that concrete measures to avoid catastrophic warming can’t wait.
Ashley Lashley, a 22-year-old from Barbardos who is on her country’s climate negotiation team in Glasgow, thought about how to communicate the need for urgency during a session on carbon trading. As she listened to other delegates debate the intricate and intractable topic that has baffled negotiators for more than six years, a phrase popped into her head: ’“blah-blah-blah.”
That’s the expression prominent teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg has started repeating to express her thoughts on the pace of government actions to curb global warming. The Thunberg-inspired Fridays for Future movement held a demonstration outside the conference venue to pressure the negotiators inside, drawing tens of thousands of participants.
And inside, the session Lashley attended droned on. She worries her fellow negotiators too easily become bogged down in minutiae and lose sight of the big picture: keeping emissions from exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), which could wipe out some island nations and other vulnerable spots.
“Can’t you guys just wrap it up,” Lashley, one of the few young people sitting in on negotiations, recalled thinking on Friday.
Umuhoza Grace Ineza, 25, a negotiator for Rwanda, said she watches some sessions crawling along and hears other negotiators say “Ooh, let’s try this way, that way, and then we can come up with a decision next session.” Ineza says she wants to ask them if they understand how urgent limiting climate change is for the next generation.
“In my mind, it’s like do these people have children?” she said.
University of Michigan graduate student observers AJ Convertino and Evan Gonzalez said watching the sessions on the inside made them both more impatient but also more optimistic because they see the right things being said and done, if still way too slowly.
Friday was the day the U.N. conference said it was dedicating to youth. But the schedule didn’t reflect that, at times: a news conference where officials talked about youth had a panel with no members under 30, and the lunchtime events featured former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, 73, and 77-year-old John Kerry, the U.S. climate envoy.
“Can’t you guys just wrap it up,” Lashley, one of the few young people sitting in on negotiations, recalled thinking on Friday.
Umuhoza Grace Ineza, 25, a negotiator for Rwanda, said she watches some sessions crawling along and hears other negotiators say “Ooh, let’s try this way, that way, and then we can come up with a decision next session.” Ineza says she wants to ask them if they understand how urgent limiting climate change is for the next generation.
“In my mind, it’s like do these people have children?” she said.
University of Michigan graduate student observers AJ Convertino and Evan Gonzalez said watching the sessions on the inside made them both more impatient but also more optimistic because they see the right things being said and done, if still way too slowly.
Friday was the day the U.N. conference said it was dedicating to youth. But the schedule didn’t reflect that, at times: a news conference where officials talked about youth had a panel with no members under 30, and the lunchtime events featured former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, 73, and 77-year-old John Kerry, the U.S. climate envoy.
“When I arrived at COP26, I could only see white middle-aged men in suits,” Magali Cho Lin Wing, 17, a member of the UNICEF U.K. Youth Advisory Board, said at a press event. “And I thought, ‘Hold on is this a climate conference or some corporate event? Is this what you came for? To swap business cards?’”
And except on rare occasions, young people say they are not being listened to.
“It’s our future. Our future is being negotiated, and we don’t have a seat at the table,” said 20-year-old Boston College student Julia Horchos, who is inside the conference, but hasn’t gotten into negotiating sessions.
Still, they know it’s important to be at least near the room where it all happens.
“It’s my life,” Horchos said. “Its definitely my responsibility to step up.”
Greenpeace International Executive Director Jennifer Morgan gave the conference participants and activists under 30 credit.
“Youth have brought critical urgency to the talks,” Greenpeace International Executive Director Jennifer Morgan said. “They have emphasized what is at stake for young people if the gap to 1.5 C is not closed.”
Outside the negotiations, the worry about the future was the same, but the way it was expressed was different. During the Fridays for Future demonstration in Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Park, mostly young activists carried banners with slogans such as “I have to clear up my mess, why don’t you clear up yours?” and “Stop climate crimes.”
Speaking at the Fridays rally outside the conference venue, Greta Thunberg branded the U.N. climate talks in Glasgow so far “a failure,” accusing leaders of actively creating loopholes in the rules and giving misleading pictures of their countries’ emissions
“World leaders are obviously scared of the truth, yet no matter how hard they try, they cannot escape it,” the 18-year-old Swedish activist said. “They cannot ignore the scientific consensus, and above all they cannot ignore us - the people, including their own children.”
The Fridays For Future protest was part of a series of demonstrations being staged around the world Friday and Saturday, to coincide with the talks.
Some at the rally accused negotiators of “greenwashing” their country’s failure to curb greenhouse gas emissions by trumpeting policies that sound good but won’t do enough to prevent dangerous temperature rises in the coming decades.
Brianna Fruean, a 23-year-old activist who grew up in Samoa, a low-lying Pacific island nation that is particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels and cyclones, said: “My biggest fear is losing my country.”
“I’ve seen the floods go into our homes, and I’ve scooped out the mud,” she said.
Fruean was given the stage at the beginning of the conference, known as COP26, where she told leaders about the effects of climate change already being felt in her country.
“I feel like I’m being seen,” she said. “I will know if I’ve been heard by the end of COP.”
Natalia Gomez, 24, of Costa Rica, has been in on negotiating sessions and cheered on the outside protest from afar. Outside, youths are making important points, getting attention and putting pressure on leaders, she said. Inside, youths are helping try to get things done. She keeps asking herself which one is more important.
“I don’t know,” Gomez said.
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Follow AP’s climate coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate. Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter: @borenbears.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Young activists participate in a student march against climate change on Friday on the sidelines of the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland. Photo by Robert Perry/EPA-EFE
Nov. 5 (UPI) -- After a week of speeches, meetings and agreements, the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Scotland is focusing Friday on activists and non-government leaders.
The events in Glasgow on Friday were to include a student march, civilian presentations and Swedish climate proponent Greta Thunberg.
Thunberg joined thousands of activists in a march to capture the attention of the world leaders who are attending the COP26 summit, as well as those who aren't.
The marchers, organized by Fridays for Future Scotland, demonstrated from Kelvingrove Park to George Square in the middle of Glasgow's city center.
Thunberg, activist Vanessa Nakate and other young demonstrators were expected to speak along with local trade unionists.
Thunberg, 18, has been critical of the U.N. conference, mainly because she says it lacks real and significant action to mitigate climate change. She said leaders have celebrated future strategies, but aren't making tough decisions on what needs to be done now.
"This is no longer a climate conference. This is a Global North greenwash festival," Thunberg tweeted Thursday. "A two-week celebration of business as usual and blah blah blah."
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's office frowned on young people leaving school Friday to take part in the march. Johnson has been hosting the summit since it began on Sunday.
"We do understand why young people feel so strongly about climate change, and we want to see them use that passion and turn it into action," a spokesman from Johnson's office said, according to The Independent.
Climate activist Greta Thunberg labels COP26 a 'failure' as youth demand action
Climate activist Greta Thunberg speaks at a Fridays for Future march during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), in Glasgow, Scotland, on November 5, 2021.
Climate activist Greta Thunberg speaks at a Fridays for Future march during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), in Glasgow, Scotland, on November 5, 2021.
© Yves Herman, Reuters
Text by: NEWS WIRES|
Video by: Nicholas RUSHWORTH
Issued on: 05/11/2021 -
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg on Friday branded the UN climate summit in Glasgow a “failure” during a mass protest in the Scottish city demanding swifter action from leaders to address the emergency.
Thunberg said pledges from some nations made during COP26 to accelerate their emissions cuts amounted to little more than “a two-week long celebration of business as usual and blah, blah, blah”.
“It is not a secret that COP26 is a failure,” she told the thousands of people at the protest.
“This is no longer a climate conference. This is now a global greenwashing festival.”
Delegates from nearly 200 countries are in Glasgow to hammer out how to meet the Paris Agreement goals of limiting temperature rises to between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius.
The first week of talks saw countries announce plans to phase out coal use and to end foreign fossil fuel funding, but there were few details on how they plan the mass decarbonisation scientists say is needed.
The promises followed a major assessment that showed global CO2 emissions are set to rebound in 2021 to pre-pandemic levels.
“Our leaders are not leading. This is what leadership looks like,” she said gesturing to the crowd.
Two days of demonstrations are planned by activist groups to highlight the disconnect between the glacial pace of emissions reductions and the climate emergency already swamping countries across the world.
Some progress
Onlookers to Friday’s march lined the streets and hung out of windows to watch the stream of protesters, who held banners reading “No Planet B” and “Climate Action Now”.
“I’m here because the world leaders are deciding the fate of our future and the present of people that have already been impacted by climate crisis,” said 18-year-old Valentina Ruas.
“We won’t accept anything that isn’t real climate policy centred on climate justice.”
Students were out in force, with some schools allowing pupils to skip lessons to see the march and one young green warrior holding a placard that read: “Climate change is worse than homework”.
But environmental groups pointed out that governments, particularly wealthy polluters, have a habit of failing to live up to their promises.
Vanessa Nakate told the crowd that people in her native Uganda were “being erased” by climate change.
“People are dying, children are dropping out of school, farms are being destroyed,” she said.
“Another world is necessary. Another world is possible.”
‘Take responsibility’
Countries came into COP26 with national climate plans that, when brought together, put Earth on course to warm 2.7C this century, according to the UN.
With just 1.1C of warming so far, communities across the world are already facing ever more intense fire and drought, displacement and economic ruin wrought by the Earth’s heating climate.
“Scientists have done what they need to do, they’ve told us about the problem. Young people have done what they need to do by calling attention to this issue,” said Natalie Tariro Chido Mangondo, a Zimbabwean climate and gender advocate.
“And it’s just up to our leaders to get their act together.”
Campaigners say they expect up to 50,000 demonstrators in the Scottish city on Saturday as part of a global round of climate protests.
A spokesman from Police Scotland said there were “fewer than 20 arrests made” as of Friday night, mainly for public disorder offences.
(AFP)
Text by: NEWS WIRES|
Video by: Nicholas RUSHWORTH
Issued on: 05/11/2021 -
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg on Friday branded the UN climate summit in Glasgow a “failure” during a mass protest in the Scottish city demanding swifter action from leaders to address the emergency.
Thunberg said pledges from some nations made during COP26 to accelerate their emissions cuts amounted to little more than “a two-week long celebration of business as usual and blah, blah, blah”.
“It is not a secret that COP26 is a failure,” she told the thousands of people at the protest.
“This is no longer a climate conference. This is now a global greenwashing festival.”
Delegates from nearly 200 countries are in Glasgow to hammer out how to meet the Paris Agreement goals of limiting temperature rises to between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius.
The first week of talks saw countries announce plans to phase out coal use and to end foreign fossil fuel funding, but there were few details on how they plan the mass decarbonisation scientists say is needed.
The promises followed a major assessment that showed global CO2 emissions are set to rebound in 2021 to pre-pandemic levels.
“They cannot ignore the scientific consensus and they cannot ignore us,” said Thunberg.
“Our leaders are not leading. This is what leadership looks like,” she said gesturing to the crowd.
Two days of demonstrations are planned by activist groups to highlight the disconnect between the glacial pace of emissions reductions and the climate emergency already swamping countries across the world.
Some progress
Onlookers to Friday’s march lined the streets and hung out of windows to watch the stream of protesters, who held banners reading “No Planet B” and “Climate Action Now”.
“I’m here because the world leaders are deciding the fate of our future and the present of people that have already been impacted by climate crisis,” said 18-year-old Valentina Ruas.
“We won’t accept anything that isn’t real climate policy centred on climate justice.”
Students were out in force, with some schools allowing pupils to skip lessons to see the march and one young green warrior holding a placard that read: “Climate change is worse than homework”.
Experts say a commitment made during the high-level leaders’ summit at the start of COP26 by more than 100 nations to cut methane emissions by at least 30 percent this decade will have a real short-term impact on global heating.
But environmental groups pointed out that governments, particularly wealthy polluters, have a habit of failing to live up to their promises.
Vanessa Nakate told the crowd that people in her native Uganda were “being erased” by climate change.
“People are dying, children are dropping out of school, farms are being destroyed,” she said.
“Another world is necessary. Another world is possible.”
‘Take responsibility’
Countries came into COP26 with national climate plans that, when brought together, put Earth on course to warm 2.7C this century, according to the UN.
With just 1.1C of warming so far, communities across the world are already facing ever more intense fire and drought, displacement and economic ruin wrought by the Earth’s heating climate.
“Scientists have done what they need to do, they’ve told us about the problem. Young people have done what they need to do by calling attention to this issue,” said Natalie Tariro Chido Mangondo, a Zimbabwean climate and gender advocate.
“And it’s just up to our leaders to get their act together.”
Campaigners say they expect up to 50,000 demonstrators in the Scottish city on Saturday as part of a global round of climate protests.
A spokesman from Police Scotland said there were “fewer than 20 arrests made” as of Friday night, mainly for public disorder offences.
(AFP)
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