More than 50,000 protesters march in Glasgow and other UK cities for climate change action

305

View
comments

More than 50,000 eco-warriors are demonstrating through UK cities including Glasgow, London and Bristol today, demanding urgent action to tackle the climate crisis.

Thousands of people including students and Left-wing activists are marching through Glasgow, where the Cop26 conference is being held, carrying red flags and banners reading ‘Capitalism is killing the planet’, amid a significant police presence. 

In Scotland’s second city, demonstrators brought the city centre to a standstill by chaining themselves to the King George V Bridge, blocking pedestrians and cars as they sang ‘power to the people’ and unfurled a banner which read: ‘Climate revolution… or we will lose everything’. A Police Scotland spokesman told MailOnline that officers are ‘engaging’ with the protesters. 

In London, hundreds of protesters gathered at the Bank of England for the start of a two-mile march through the city to Trafalgar Square, banging steel drums, chanting ‘one solution’ and waving Extinction Rebellion banners reading ‘tell the truth’.  

Across the Irish Sea, activists congregated in Belfast ahead of a noisy and colourful march through the city centre before a planned rally at City Hall – while in the Republic of Ireland, hundreds of demonstrators gathered at the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin. 

In total, some 200 events are taking across the UK and around the world including France, the Netherlands and Australia, according to organisers The Cop26 Coalition. The marches come after Greta Thunberg led schoolchildren and their parents through Glasgow yesterday as they protested against investment in fossil fuels and ‘failure’ to tackle the climate crisis.

On one stage at the conference, actor Idris Elba warned Cop26 that the climate crisis poses a threat to global food security. Sitting on the same panel, climate justice campaigner Vanessa Nakate of Uganda implored the world to stop burning fossil fuels, the main cause of rising global temperatures. 

Miss Thunberg, 18, called the Cop26 conference, where countries are meeting in a bid to increase ambition on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, ‘a global north greenwash festival, a two-week long celebration of business as usual and blah blah blah’.

The latest demonstrations come midway through the summit, which has seen world leaders gather to set out the action they are taking and commit to curb deforestation, phase out coal, end funding for fossil fuels abroad and cut methane emissions. 

Scroll down for videos. 

But there is still a significant gap between the measures countries have committed to and what is needed to avoid more than 1.5C of warming, beyond which the worst floods, droughts, storms and rising seas of climate change will be felt.

Countries are under pressure to agree a process to increase ambition in the next decade, as well as deliver finance for developing countries to cope with the crisis and finalise the last parts of how the global Paris Agreement on climate change will work.

As the protests take place, negotiations continue at Cop26, while the conference is also focusing on the role of nature, land use and agriculture in tackling climate change on Saturday.

Jason Cook, 54, from Wootton Bassett, said he and two friends were marching through Glasgow because they were tired of hearing ‘blah, blah, blah’ from leaders on climate action. 

The three men had come to the march wearing helmets, each adorned with a sign which said ‘blah’, echoing the description of the Cop26 summit by Ms Thunberg.

Dave Knight, 51, from Wiltshire, said the best way to stave off the worst effects of climate change is to end the use and extraction of fossil fuels. He also said ‘significantly more investment’ was needed in renewables. 

Demonstrators will also be on the streets of central London, as well as for 200 events across the UK and around the world, organisers said.

The marches come after thousands of youth activists, including Miss Thunberg, marched through Glasgow on Friday to decry investment in fossil fuels and failure to tackle the climate crisis.

Miss Thunberg called the Cop26 conference, where countries are meeting in a bid to increase ambition on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, ‘a global greenwash festival, a two-week long celebration of business as usual and blah blah blah’. 

The young Swedish activist has digressed from her usual calmly mannered rhetoric and opted for a few more choice words about politicians and how they have reacted to climate change. 

The teenage activist spoke about people being ‘p****d off’ by protests and was also filmed singing ‘You can shove your climate crisis up your a***’ while outside Cop26.

Miss Thunberg gave a passionate and foul-mouthed speech last week, telling demonstrators: ‘Inside Cop, there are just politicians and people in power pretending to take our future seriously… No more blah blah blah, no more whatever the f*** they are doing inside there!’

As heads of Government from around the world discussed what could be done to save the planet from ruin, the Swedish eco activist appeared to lay the blame for looming natural disasters squarely on them as she riled up her fellow activists with a chant of: ‘You can shove your climate crisis up your a***’.

However, US special presidential envoy for climate John Kerry said there was a greater sense of urgency and focus at the Cop26 talks than ever.

However, he added he was ‘frustrated’ over the pace of climate action and warned it was ‘not job done’ at the conference.

The latest demonstrations come midway through the Cop26 summit, which has seen about 120 leaders gather in Glasgow to set out the action they are taking and commit to curb deforestation, phase out coal, end funding for fossil fuels abroad and cut methane emissions.

Yet there is still a significant gap between the measures countries have committed to and what is needed to avoid more than 1.5C of warming, beyond which the worst floods, droughts, storms and rising seas of climate change will be felt. 

Countries are under pressure to agree a to increased ambition in tackling global warming in the next decade, as well as to deliver money for developing countries to cope with the crisis and finalise the last parts of how the global Paris Agreement on climate change will work.

As the protests take place, negotiations continue at Cop26, while the conference is also focusing on the role of nature, land use and agriculture in tackling climate change on Saturday.

One of the protesters taking part in Saturday’s demonstrations, Mikaela Loach, is a young Scottish climate activist who is challenging the UK’s North Sea oil and gas expansion in court.

She said: ‘Many thousands of us are marching right across the world today to demand immediate and serious action. We’re clear that warm words are not good enough and that the next week of talks must see a serious ramping up of concrete plans.’  

The demonstrations come after months of eco-warriors from Insulate Britain, an offshoot of Extinction Rebellion, have divided public opinion about their extreme protesting methods.

The climate enthusiasts blocked roads by sitting down or gluing themselves to the tarmac, causing havoc for commuters. 

Just last week the group were ridiculed for blocking an insulation lorry carrying the exact materials they want installed in homes across the country as activists took their sit-down protests to the heart of Westminster.