Fridays For Future have announced a global climate strike tomorrow, Friday 3 March, which will see protestors march from Middle Meadow Walk to the Scottish Parliament, departing at 11 am.
The organisers will emphasise the catastrophic effects that fossil fuels have on our planet and its people; the lives being sacrificed for new oil and gas.
Adam Ballard, a 17-year-old activist with Fridays For Future, said: “The climate crisis and the cost of living crisis have the same root cause: the refusal to move away from fossil fuels.
“There is no energy shortage; there is a corrupt system that prioritises profit over people. While ordinary people are forced to choose between heating and eating, the people in power and fossil fuel CEOs continue to make unimaginable profits.”
After the march, there will be a rally in front of the Scottish Parliament where speakers from supportive groups including Stop Rosebank, Youth in Resistance, the Edinburgh High School Students Union and Palestine Action will share words with the activists and lend their experiences.
Niamh Gill, 16, said, “The science clearly states there can be no more oil, gas or coal developments if we want a liveable future.
“The UK government is keeping Rosebank, Jackdaw and the newly proposed Whitehaven coal mine on the table, instead of securing and investing in a just transition to renewables for the workers and wider society, and climate justice for all.”
Harris, an 18-year-old activist added: “The Global North has already used up 90% of the carbon budget to have a chance of staying below 1.5 or 2 degrees of warming. Millions in the Global South are far more vulnerable to this crisis, despite having the least responsibility in causing it.
“Yet our countries, governments and corporations continue to exploit them and destroy their lives and communities in search of more profit. The facts are clear, fossil fuels are fatal.”
Fridays for Future Edinburgh are calling on everyone to join them on March 3rd to protest against fossil fuels and the UK Government’s continued expansion of fossil fuel projects.
As the UN Climate Conference, COP27, draws to a close in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, many of the most continuous issues remain unresolved, or will be delayed to a future summit.
The negotiations, which were due to close yesterday, have now to run into overtime.
Friends of the Earth Scotland head of campaigns Mary Church said: “As we race towards climate breakdown, once again we are seeing rich countries trying to evade their responsibility to step up and do their fair share of climate action.
“As extreme weather events wreak havoc around the world, the UK and US are parroting the mantra of keeping 1.5°C alive while doing exactly the opposite by continuing to expand damaging fossil fuel projects. They are failing to stump up the climate finance they owe and which Global South countries need to adapt to and recover from the impacts of global heating.
“Big polluters who brought the climate to the brink of breakdown are cynically bargaining away the future of people and planet in order to eek out a few extra years of profits from business-as-usual, by pushing dangerous fantasy techno-fixes and human rights trashing nature-fixes.
“Nothing short of a complete transformation of our economic system and phase out of fossil fuels is needed to avoid complete climate breakdown.
World leaders lack the political will to take the necessary action, but people everywhere are rising up and fighting dirty energy projects and putting in place the real, community based solutions which can deliver climate justice.
“There can be no climate justice without human rights, and we stand in solidarity with British citizen Alaa And-El Fattah and all prisoners of conscience. The UK Government has failed to use its abundant leverage with the Egyptian Government to secure Alaa’s release.
“The spotlight must not move on when COP27 is over. We will not forget you.”
Analysis of what has happened in the COP27 negotiations :
LOSS & DAMAGE
• Global South countries have made finance for Loss and Damage, or the now unavoidable impacts of climate change, a top priority at COP27, as extreme weather events, exacerbated by global heating, wreak havoc around the world.
• Rich, historical polluters are pitting calls for urgently needed Loss and Damage finance against meeting the critical 1.5°C target, and attempting to strip the Paris Agreement goal of an equitable approach that would see Global North countries required to do their fair share of emissions cuts and finance.
• Global North countries are trying to split the G77 & China negotiating bloc, which has held strong on its demands for a Loss and Damage finance facility to be established at this COP.
Northern countries are pushing insurance schemes (the USA and Germany in particular) and a fund that would be open to fewer countries and rely on from a wider donor base than just Global North countries (Thursday evening’s proposal from the EU which is supported by many Global North countries).
• Announcements of Loss & Damage funding by Global North countries during COP27 have attracted attention and given the impression of movement on this intractable issue. However analysis shows that most of the pledges are simply repackaging of existing climate finance commitments and are directed towards early warning systems and the Global Shield insurance scheme championed by Germany, rather than badly needed public funding in response to both disasters and slow onset loss and damage, including those of a non-economic nature. This has led to accusations of ‘Loss and Damage washing’.
CARBON MARKETS & CARBON REMOVALS
• Meanwhile the question of whether dangerous emissions avoidance and removals schemes would be counted towards mitigation efforts under plans for carbon markets is likely to be delayed to future summits. The highly controversial issue of whether carbon markets would be allowed under the Paris Agreement was settled last year in Glasgow, however substantial issues remain unresolved.
Carbon markets allow polluters to continue emitting greenhouse gases, for a price, either through trading or offsetting (paying someone else to cut their emissions). With no top-down, science or justice based targets in the Paris Agreement carbon markets are simply unworkable and a major distraction from real solutions to cutting emissions.
FOSSIL FUEL PHASE OUT
• Horse trading in the final hours may result in the phase down or out of all fossil fuels being cited in the President’s cover decision (the equivalent of the Glasgow Pact), which would be progress on last year’s decision to phase down coal only. However the likely caveat of ‘unabated’, which allows for fossil fuels to go ahead with only the promise that e.g. they will be ‘carbon capture and storage ready’ would seriously temper this win.
The US has the second biggest fossil fuel expansion plans in the world (after Saudi Arabia), while the UK is pushing a new licensing round that could see a hundred new licences for North Sea oil and gas extraction issued.
HUMAN RIGHTS
• COP27 has been held against the backdrop of shrinking civil society space globally, and the Egyptian Government’s highly repressive regime which has arbitrarily detained and tortured thousands.
Climate justice groups have been vocal in their solidarity with Egyptian prisoners of conscience including high profile hunger striker, British citizen Alaa Abd El-Fattah. The UK Government has failed to prioritise securing Alaa’s release, and he remains in a highly precarious situation.
Investment to tackle “loss and damage” from climate change
Funding to help some of the world’s most vulnerable communities recover from and build resilience against climate change will be announced as world leaders gather for COP26.
The Scottish Government’s Climate Justice Fund will provide £1 million to support a partnership with the Climate Justice Resilience Fund to help communities repair and rebuild from climate-related events, such as flooding and wild fires.
The partnership forms part of the Scottish Government’s commitment to ensure COP26 empowers the most vulnerable to tackle structural inequalities.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will make the announcement at the Global Climate Assembly at a Green Zone event today, where she will set out Scotland’s intention to bridge the divide between those whose voices are rarely heard and those making the decisions.
The First Minister said: “Climate justice has to be at the heart of COP26 – and the Scottish Government is working to ensure that it provides a platform for unheard voices, including citizens, young people and those from the Global South.
“Through our work on climate justice, Scotland continues to proudly support nations which – despite having done the least to cause climate change – are already suffering its impact.
“We don’t have the resources of other western governments, but we can lead by example. And so I’m pleased to announce that not only are we doubling our climate justice fund to £24 million – we’re also entering into a partnership with the Climate Justice Resilience Fund to support communities and address loss and damage, supported by this £1 million investment.
“I hope this will galvanise other organisations to support the partnership – and show world leaders that where small nations lead they can follow, by making similarly ambitious commitments during COP26.”
The First Minister met with President of Malawi, Lazarus Chakwera, yesterday to discuss a COP hub which will open in the country to connect Malawian youth and community leaders to events in Glasgow (top).
She also met the Prime Minister of Viet Nam, Mr Pham Min Chihn, at Bute House (above).
Glasgow’s cleansing service went on strike from 00.01am this morning.
Responding to the collapse of last ditch talks between GMB and Glasgow City Council late last night, , GMB Scotland Secretary Louise Gilmour said: “We met the council in good faith, offering a clear set of proposals to reset industrial relations and avoid strikes. The council rejected these proposals.
“We specifically offered heads of terms to work together to tackle the chronic and unacceptable problems caused by years of cuts, to urgently address the employer’s unresolved discriminatory pay system and outstanding equal pay liabilities, and back this with a commitment from the council that they would not use anti-trade union laws against their workers again.
“We also proposed the Scottish Government support this process, because if the fair work agenda is to have any credibility whatsoever, then Scotland’s biggest city should be the example of it rather than the opposite.
“Regrettably, the council refused this massive opportunity to move forward and strike action across the cleansing service will now begin, during which time our members will be balloted on the COSLA pay offer.”
Regions and nations of the UK blueprint for how NOT to deliver the green jobs revolution, says GMB Union
GMB, the energy union, has said the UK must learn from its own energy and industrial policy failures if it is to set the standard at the COP26 summit in Glasgow.
The union’s call comes after Shadow Business Secretary Ed Miliband said Boris Johnson must take ‘personal responsibility’ for the talks.
Gary Smith, GMB General Secretary, said: “Climate justice and economic justice must go hand-in-hand -which means delivering the jobs transition to help reach net zero.
“But with the world coming to Glasgow, the UK isn’t any closer to this than it was in 2015.
“The regions and nations of the UK are a blueprint for how not to deliver the green jobs revolution. Look at Scotland and the broken promises of 28,000 offshore wind manufacturing jobs and “a Saudi Arabia of renewables”. Instead supply chains have been starved of work and investment.
“Despite this, our political class persist in playing fast and loose with the futures of energy workers, and with security of supply.
“This is not how you take working class people with you on a journey to net zero.
“The UK can’t set the standards at COP26 unless we start learning the lessons from our own failures on energy and industrial policy.”
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has stressed Scotland’s commitment to making sure people across the world benefit from a just transition to net zero.
Speaking yesterday at the Austrian World Summit on a panel including climate activist Greta Thunberg and UN Messenger of Peace Jane Goodall, the First Minister said that the world must seize its chance to tackle the climate crisis fairly at COP26 in Glasgow.
Building on the role of Scotland’s Climate Assembly in domestic policy-making, £100,000 of funding is being made available to support the Global Climate Assembly, an initiative which will bring together 100 participants from the global north and south to learn from each other, and to make recommendations which will feed into COP26 discussions.
Further funding of £190,000 is also being made available to support a fourth year of the Malawi Climate Youth Leaders Project, in recognition of the inter-generational impacts of climate change.
The First Minister said: “The climate crisis – with its inter-related threats of climate change, nature loss and pollution – remains the single biggest challenge the world faces. COP26 represents the world’s best chance – and possibly one of our last chances – to limit global warming to 1.5°.
“One of the great injustices of the climate crisis is that the people and countries who are worst affected are usually those who have done least to cause it.
“At Glasgow, their needs must be recognised, and their voices must be heard. The Scottish Government is determined to help with that process.
“All of us – and governments in particular – now need to summon that same sense of urgency in tackling the climate crisis. If we do, COP26 can become a global turning point – one which ensures that as we recover from the pandemic, we create a greener and fairer world.”
While the First Minister may have enjoyed her appearance on the world stage yesterday, it’s back to urgent domestic matters today.
A record 4234 new cases of coronavirus were reported in Scotland yesterday and national clinical director Prof Jason Leitch has admitted that the huge increase in Covid-19 cases is putting considerable strain on Scotland’s contact tracing system.
Public Health Scotland figures suggest it is now taking longer to contact infectious people and to track down their close contacts, leading to wider spread.
Ms Sturgeon will face the press when she holds a media briefing at lunchtime today.
