From our special correspondent at COP26 in Glasgow
We must leave the Scottish Event Campus and agree to get lost in the streets of Glasgow. Go up Finnieston Street, turn right onto St-Vincent Street, walk for a long time, climb Pitt Street… Finally, after twenty minutes of walking, you come across
Adelaide Place, unmissable as the Baptist Church of 1877 contrasts with the modern buildings that have risen up nearby.
This is where the “COP26 Coalition”, a group of around fifty civil society organizations from all over the world, took up residence during COP26. Here too, she organized most of her main event:
the “People’s Summit”, four days of intensive conferences, workshops, people’s courts, on climate justice issues. It ended on Wednesday evening.
Keep abreast of the progress of negotiations
It is here again that she makes an appointment, every evening at 5 p.m., until the end of the COP26, to its citizens’ assemblies. They always begin with a summary of the day’s negotiations at the “official” COP, to which few in the room have access. Then, the evening is followed by a debate around a theme that is new every day *. “In short, a sort of COP26 bis. Not those of political leaders, but that of civil society, quite official but not stamped by the UN, ”summarizes Avril Danczack, a young retiree who came from Manchester to join the small army of volunteers of the“ COP26 Coalition ”.
No need to be accredited to enter the church, nor to present your badge and X-ray your bags at each of your entrances, unlike the “blue zone” of the official COP26. You will just be asked for proof of a negative PCR test carried out during the day, Covid-19 requires. Then take a seat at one of the tables in the center of the church or on one of the benches on the upper floors. No suit and tie in the assembly, no civilized speeches either. “The ‘People’s Summit’ began on Sunday morning with a People’s Court against the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [Cnucc] – whose COPs are the annual meetings of the 197 countries that have adopted it – and the false solutions they advocate ”, illustrates Matthieu Essahli, of the alterglobalist association Attac France, who participated in preparing this fictitious trial “whose verdict should soon be published”.
“Here, we dare to talk about fossil fuels”
“We dare to talk about fossil fuels and the need to get out of it,” says Avril Danczack, while the subject burns the fingers of official delegations twenty minutes away. “And all the other subjects put under the carpet at the Scottish Event Campus”, adds the Englishwoman. What Sabrina Fernandez will do without detour on Wednesday morning, on the sidelines of a round table on the issue of achieving
a new global green agreement [« Global green new deal »]. “It is interesting to see to what extent the major climate policies developed today – like the European Green Deal – mainly boil down to betting on renewable energies, launches the Brazilian economist. But never to mention cobalt, lithium and other minerals which these energies are very greedy for. However, they are mainly extracted in Asia, Africa, South America, at the cost of heavy environmental impacts for the local populations. “
The UN, the countries of the North, the big companies… Everyone takes it for their rank in Adelaide Place. “Overall, the capitalist system in which we are and of which we are well aware that we contribute to it on our scale,” summarizes Avril Danczack, waving her smartphone. But Adelaide Place is not just a court. A simple glance at the imposing program of the “People’s Summit” and of the citizens’ assemblies – “prepared for six months”, specifies Matthieu Essahli – is enough to realize that the “COP26 Coalition” is very focused on research. solutions. From how to talk about the climate crisis to children, subject of a round table on Sunday, to how to ensure better representativeness in COPs for people with disabilities, thematic of the citizens’ assembly on Wednesday evening. “Not a small subject, insists Manon Bourhis, in civic service in a French student association ** came to attend. We saw it again in Glasgow
with the difficulties encountered by the Israeli minister, using a wheelchair, to access the Scottish Event Campus. Overall, there are very few people with disabilities there. ” ” We are
a billion in the world and we are not even among the nine groups of non-state actors accredited to the COPs ”, protested one of the speakers on Wednesday evening.
“Create the movement of movements”
All these events organized or co-organized by the “COP26 Coalition”, including the major “Global day of action” demonstrations all over the world, last Saturday, do not only seek to provide a forum for these sections of society. “The goal is also to bring them together, to federate them”, adds Matthieu Essahli. From environmental associations to unions, including youth movements, all under the banner of climate justice. “Creating the movement of movements”, once again summarizes Avril Danczack.
This work did not start in Glasgow. “There is now a coalition of NGOs similar to the” COP26 Coalition “and a peoples’ assembly almost at every COP”, recalls Nicolas Haeringer, campaign manager at 350.org. At the COP21 in Paris, in 2015, the first brought together around fifty organizations and the second was held
at the Centquatre cultural center. “But this is the first time since Paris that the coalition of NGOs has been so important, offers a program of events as well constructed and so diverse, adding these thematic assemblies every evening”, observes Nicolas Haeringer.
He sees it as a reflection of the “maturity of the climate movement in Great Britain, with associations which are very familiar with the various movements in the world and which have been able to build a collective working framework. “There is a second reason, adds Matthieu Essahli:” This COP26 is undoubtedly the least inclusive in history “. “A disgrace for Great Britain,” thundered many British crusaders in Adelaide Place on Wednesday evening.
A response to the COP’s lack of inclusiveness?
This low representativeness does not just come down to the difficulties encountered by delegations and civil organizations from southern countries to come to Glasgow, in a context marked by the Covid-19. “The climate COPs are the rare summits organized by the UN where the blue zone is open to NGOs and where they can hold press conferences, present reports, launch actions,” explains Nicolas Haeringer. This is still the case in Glasgow, but there are no real spaces dedicated to NGOs this year. “
At the “official” COP, there is also the “green pavilion”, to be seen as a large exhibition hall. Open to everyone this time. Tessa Overvoorde, who arrived on Sunday, went there to take a look. “Frankly, very disappointing,” she says. From the entrance, we are told how much Britain is at the forefront in the fight against climate change. “Suddenly, in Glasgow, the London student mostly hung out in the conferences of the“ COP26 Coalition ”.