(ABC) Big Crowds Rally In Rainy Glasgow For Cop26 Climate Action

ABC - Reuters

 A final pact will be announced after further COP26 negotiations next week. (AP: Andrew Milligan/PA)

Key Points Activists have staged rallies in Glasgow, Seoul, Copenhagen and other cities Sydney and Melbourne saw protests call for greater climate action on Saturday Julia Gillard has told COP26 that everyone on earth will be impacted by climate change

Tens of thousands of protesters have marched through rainy downtown Glasgow, and in many other cities around the world, to demand bolder action at the UN climate conference.

Students, activists and climate-concerned citizens linked arms as they moved slowly through the streets of the Scottish city, host of the COP26 meeting that began on Monday.

Some pushed children in strollers, some danced to stay warm. Police watched the procession from the flanks.

"It's good to have your voice heard," said Kim Travers of Edinburgh.

"Even with the rain, I think it makes it a bit more dramatic."

Some countries, not including Australia, have agreed to phase out coal. (Reuters: Yves Herman)

Just a few blocks from the procession, back-room negotiations continued at the COP26 meeting. On stage, speakers sounded the alarm over the threat of global warming to food security.

Since the climate talks began, national delegations have been working to agree on technical details for the final pact, to be announced at the end of the conference after more negotiations this week.

The first week also saw countries make a slew of promises to phase out coal, slash emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane and reduce deforestation.

Business leaders and financiers, meanwhile, pledged to invest more in climate solutions.

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But activists have demanded that the meeting make more progress.Ros Cadoux, a grandmother from Edinburgh, said she came to march for future generations.

"If you've got kids and grandkids, my God, what else could you do?"

Colourful banners bore slogans ranging from earnest calls for "Climate Justice Now", to the more comical: "No planet = no beer".One group bounced along to the sound of a drum and chanted: "Get up, get down, keep that carbon in the ground."

"The climate crisis is about the survival of humanity as we know it," said Philipp Chmel, who traveled from Germany for the march.

"It's up to the youth and the workers, the working class, to bring about the change that is necessary."

Tens of thousands braved Glasgow rain to send a message on climate change. (AP: Andrew Milligan/PA)

One group of young people — some with bullhorns — blamed companies for the climate crisis and chanted calls in favour of socialism while punching their fists in the air.

Around midday, the rain cleared for a few hours, and an enormous rainbow streaked across the sky.

"If ever there was a time for activism, and if ever there was a time for the people to come out onto the streets, then it is today," said University of Glasgow student Theo Lockett, 20.

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Climate activists held rallies in many other cities, including Seoul, Copenhagen and London.

Blinky, the smoking, screaming four-metre high koala puppet, is seen with Extinction Rebellion activists in Melbourne.(Reuters: Extinction Rebellion)

More than 1,000 people demonstrated on Saturday in Sydney and Melbourne to protest against the government's climate policies and the strategies it offered at COP26.

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Sydney's first legal protest after a months-long COVID-19 lockdown saw about 1,000 people march in support of global action day for climate justice, a worldwide movement mobilised during the COP26 meeting.

"We're all out here to show that we want more from our government," said protester Georgia, who gave only her first name.

"The COP 26 agreements were happening and it's not turning out the best for Australia at the moment."

Marchers carried signs reading, "We need human change, not climate change" and "Code Red for Humanity".

Australia has rejected a global pledge to slash emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane. Campaigners and pressure groups have not been impressed by the commitments of other world leaders.

Rallies were held around Australia. (Reuters: Extinction Rebellion)

Melbourne's protest was smaller than Sydney's, with just a few hundred people turning out for a rally that featured a giant koala bear emitting plumes of smoke, and protesters dressed as skeletons on bikes.

Several smaller events were held elsewhere in Australia.

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'Obituary of our planet'

During a panel of speeches on Saturday (local time), Democratic US senator Sheldon Whitehouse urged companies to rein in groups lobbying politicians to block climate action.

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"Corporate members who made big promises here at this COP have got to get their trade associations under control so they're not undercutting our work in Congress," said Mr Whitehouse, who was at COP26 with a bipartisan group of Congress members.

He also told journalists that it was crucial to resolve a carbon price for carbon markets — one of the key sticking points in the negotiations.

As with the COVID-19 pandemic, "it won't be long before the entire population of the world is affected, directly or indirectly" by climate change, said former prime minister Julia Gillard, now head of UK health charity the Wellcome Trust.

Earlier at the conference, actor Idris Elba acknowledged that he had few credentials to speak on climate change, but said he was at COP26 to amplify the climate threat to global food security.

COP26 has seen high-profile speakers including Idris Elba. (AP: Alastair Grant)

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.

"We are watching farms collapse and livelihoods lost due to floods, droughts and swarms of locusts," she said — all of which scientists say are being exacerbated by climate change.

"The climate crisis means hunger and death for many people in my country and across Africa."

Civil society leaders and representatives from companies like Unilever and PepsiCo spoke about corporate responsibility in making trade and commerce less of a burden on nature.

Speaking about using satellite technology to monitor global landscapes, the director and founder of Google Earth Outreach urged better stewardship of the world's forests.

"We don't want to be writing the obituary of our planet in high resolution," Rebecca Moore said.

Dozens of countries commit to phasing out coal, except Australia

Links

• Climate protests: fury, and optimism, in the Glasgow rain
• Millions around the world march to demand action on the climate crisis – video report
• ‘The time for change is now’: demonstrators around the world demand action on climate crisis
• Cop26 week one: the impression of progress – but not nearly enough
• Cop this: tens of thousands brave Glasgow weather to demand climate action
• Australia refuses to join global pledge led by US and EU to cut methane emissions
• How dung beetles, a tiny molecule and a giant extension cord could help solve our climate mess
• 'COP26 is a failure': Thunberg leads youth from around the globe in Glasgow protests
• Summer hibernation, more disasters: What the future may hold for Australia’s children