Hundreds of climate protesters are gathering in London to pile pressure on world leaders to take more drastic action on the climate crisis at the COP26 summit in Glasgow.
Demonstrations are taking place worldwide amid the crucial negotiations that have been dubbed humanity’s “last chance saloon” to avert catastrophic warming and the associated collapse of stable climate on Earth.
On Saturday (November 6), hundreds of protestors gathered in central London demanding greater, immediate action from negotiators at COP26.
Banging steel drums, chanting “one solution” and waving Extinction Rebellion banners reading “tell the truth”, the protesters said they are planning to march two miles to Trafalgar Square.
Unconfirmed estimates suggested “tens of thousands” of demonstrators marched in London, joining thousands of others who staged parallel protests in Glasgow and more than 300 other protests reported around the world.
Frontline health workers including doctors and nurses highlighting the imminent health risks posed by global heating joined the protest, while trade union workers, students, and Labour and Green politicians also took part.
The London March for Climate Justice has left the Bank of England and is marching towards Trafalgar square for a rally.#Cop26GDA #ClimateJustice
– Keep It In The Ground: No New Fossil Fuel Investments Or Infrastructure
– Reparations And Redistribution To The Global South! pic.twitter.com/rNUrzVG2Nx
— COP26 Coalition (@COP26_Coalition) November 6, 2021
Sophie Blake with her two-month-old son Kit marched alongside pensioners using walking sticks.
Blake, 33, from Kentish Town in north London, told the PA news agency she had joined the protest so the Government would “make the right decisions for our children” at the Glasgow summit.
Another parent, Valkan Aran, 48, from Stoke Newington, carried his four-year-old daughter Aylin on his shoulders and told PA he wanted to show her how to take action for her future.
The demands for immediate action at COP26 follow a sweeping, international report on the climate crisis by the UN’s IPCC that was called “Code Red for humanity” by UN General Secretary Antonio Gutierres.
#IPCC presents latest #ClimateReport to @UNFCCC #COP26 today
➡️ This report has a more precise picture of how the climate system works
➡️ Human activities are causing #climatechange
➡️ This science is essential to ongoing talks about future actions
– #IPCC Chair Hoesung Lee pic.twitter.com/ipeaIdKpc2
— IPCC (@IPCC_CH) November 4, 2021
The report found that the climate crisis was causing “widespread, rapid, and intensifying” impacts on Earth’s ecology and climate.
Scientists behind the report pointed out that evidence of observed changes in extremes such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones, and their attribution to human influence, has strengthened.
They added that many changes in the climate system become larger in direct relation to increasing global warming. “Increases in the frequency and intensity of heat extremes, marine heatwaves, and heavy precipitation; agricultural and ecological droughts in some regions; the proportion of intense tropical cyclones; as well as reductions in Arctic sea ice, snow cover and permafrost” were all cited in the report, while global food security was also highlighted as a likely impact of the climate crisis in the coming decades.
https://www.wandsworthguardian.co.uk/news/19699670.climate-protests-london-pressure-cop26-summit/
