World leaders and fossil-fuel companies have come together to decide on the fate of humanity at COP26 in Glasgow. But that’s not the full story. As always, there are two sides to the conference of the parties (COP).
There’s the official side you’re meant to see: men in suits, shaking hands and posing for photo ops. Then there’s the other side: the activists who have come to disrupt the proceedings; plenty of local colour; Greta Thunberg being the only adult in the room; and the other young leaders who aren’t shying away from calling out the rank hypocrisy on display.
Thanks to social media, we now get a behind-the-scenes view of that other side of COP26. This is what it looks like.
‘The future of humanity is in the exclusive hands of a few’
The irony of world leaders converging on Glasgow to discuss net zero in their fuel-guzzling private jets is a bit of a theme on social media, although it’s a hypocrisy that sits quite comfortably for many — along with coffee, pens, and charging stations branded with fossil-fuel company logos.
One thing that is very hard to get past, though, is Jeff Bezos delivering a speech about his realisation (on his recent and completely unnecessary jaunt into space) of how fragile the planet actually is. Amazon’s founder has told delegates of his trip: “Looking back at Earth from up there, the atmosphere seems so thin. The world is so finite and so fragile.” He then went on to pledge $2 billion — less than half of what he blew to spend just four minutes in space — to “restoring nature and transforming food systems” affected by climate change.
US climate activist Ayisha Siddiqa pointed out the hypocrisy of the “surrogate father of modern-day capitalism” speaking at a climate conference, and how it served as a reminder that “the future of humanity is in the hands of the few”. Here’s her thread where she outlines the reality of a very disconnected COP26.
The Greta Effect
One person who is managing to connect is Greta Thunberg. While US President Joe Biden’s armoured vehicles gave him the appearance of a rockstar, the real star in Glasgow was the 18-year-old Swede, who arrived by train. Despite not being officially invited to the summit, Thunberg was mobbed by fans and photographers as she left the train station on foot. TikTok user @izazkhan7553 got footage of her moving slowly down the street protected by swathes of uniformed police officers. Someone in the background asks who it is, and someone else responds “Greta! Greta Thunberg!” (delivered in the tone of “Harry! Harry Potter!”)
Many media outlets are focusing on Thunberg’s use of adult language instead of the 1.5 million and counting signatures she and fellow young activists Vanessa Nakate, Dominika Lasota, and Mitzi Tan have gathered on their online petition calling on world leaders to face up to the reality of the climate emergency. The climate activist has been caught on film in Govan chanting “you can shove your climate crisis up your arse”, and she also gave a speech to a crowd of protestors where she said “We say no more blah-blah-blah, no more exploitation of people and nature and the planet. No more exploitation … No more whatever the fuck they are doing inside there.”
You’d think we could excuse her for getting as angry at world leaders from being wilfully blind to the destruction of the future as your uncle gets at the footy when the ref makes a bad call.
Thunberg also used her huge social media following to draw attention to the obvious greenwashing at the summit:
Online and offline activism
The climate summit is always the site of in-person protests, and this year is no different. Global environmental movement Extinction Rebellion has been causing havoc, staging a sit-down protest just yards away from where world leaders gathered, and later bringing the streets of Glasgow to a standstill:
But much of the activism this year is happening online — as travel is harder at the tail end of a pandemic, individual activists and organisations have embraced the global power of social media.
UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Emtithal Mahmoud (scientist, slam poet and former refugee from Sudan) asked TikTok users to share their stories about why they’re worried about the climate crisis, and she started it herself by talking about how “back home, over 7,000,000 people are suffering because of intense flooding, while thousands more have been forced to flee their homes and are without access to food and water.”
Prominent US meteorologist and climate activist Eric Holthaus has handed over his Twitter account — with almost half a million followers — to youth climate activists from around the world, such as 16-year-old Alexandria Villaseñor, who has lost no time in highlighting a few things wrong with the proceedings, including Australia hosting Santos in our pavilion.
As well as the fact that none of the opening speeches brought up the idea of phasing out fossil fuels.
Traffic, soaring accommodation prices and Glaswegian humour
It wouldn’t be a globally important event in the UK if locals weren’t grumbling about the rain and the traffic. Social media is awash with images of Glasgow looking like a ghost town as police cordon off huge chunks of the city, Glaswegians grumbling about the traffic, and videos of US President Joe Biden’s monstrous motorcade of 20-plus vehicles (which apparently got flashed by a “large, naked Scottish man”).
But a feature (or bug) of the summit that has caught people’s eyes is the soaring prices for a pillow to rest your weary head after a hard day of summitting. TikTok user nick_ponty scrolls through the skyrocketing prices on booking.com to find an apartment on Wallace Street, South Glasgow for 70,000 pounds for nine nights. It does have a “superb” rating but, as he points out, it also has a red leather couch, so it’s nothing special. The last apartment to sell on Wallace Street sold for 130,000 pounds, he says — not a bad investment.
Better still . . . let us change the Government!
Exactly my point Coal ition also reads Coalition
The bigwigs’ attitude at COP26 is like the Sunday Christian, or the selfish idiot giving $20 to Oxfam – “by momentarily admitting my faults, I now have a licence to behave like an a***hole for the rest of the week / the year / eternity”.
Australia needs a Greta Thunberg and Grandparents to join the young as they try to save the planet we the lucky generation have trashed. Join the young let’s pick up Greta’s handwritten protest board ,protest outside schools MP offices and volunteer to be part of an election campaign, wear out some shoes . Lets create a people movement to remove the fossil fuel lobby supporting coal ition government.
One does not say so in my woke suburb, but it’s just possible Greta isn’t the messiah. Net zero or no net zero, the scenario for 2050 looks to include 10b humans, generating their massive conversion of the earth’s surface, epochal habitat and species crashes, greatly magnified land-use conflict and water insecurity. In her UN-friendly script, we don’t ever talk about humanity’s fatal environmental error of nearly quadrupling its numbers just during my lifetime – that would be racist.
It’s not really something governments can directly influence, or not without bad consequences.
The population of western Europe has been static or even declining for 2 generations, despite massive immigration from eastern Europe and ex-colonies.
A glance at births per (European born) woman is instructive.
By picking people out of poverty and educating we give them choices about their reproductive rights. Most of the developed world has negative growth – so lets get the rest of humanity to where they have a choice!
Coalition ie Liberal and National . The world can not have the likes of Morrison and Joyce stumble along for another term if we are to have any chance of reining in climate change. 2030 is eight years and two months away how can they look their children in the eyes knowing the future they will leave by crawling to the fossil fuel lobby?,
Agree and don’t be deflected by calls for reduced immigration etc. to let the old fossils’ complex off the hook helped by ageing electorates; peak population is coming soon….. (defying the PR construct ‘limits to growth’, Ehrlich and the inflated/lagging data from the UNPD).
From a promoter of ‘limits to growth’ model, according to Bricker & Ibbitson in The Guardian (27 Jan ’19) ‘What goes up: are predictions of a population crisis wrong?’:
‘Jørgen Randers, a Norwegian academic who decades ago warned of a potential global catastrophe caused by overpopulation, has changed his mind. “The world population will never reach nine billion people,” he now believes. “It will peak at 8 billion in 2040, and then decline.”’
Some would argue now that the ZPG type population focus was and has always been about ‘greenwashing’ by deflecting from fossil fuels.
Thank you for your endorsement.As you point out a forensic examination of any problem will expose many paths and many solutions .Depending on the time available all options maybe available .The urgency to reduce the effects of climate change rules out many options including our PMs yet to be invented magic pudding. Time is our enemy .
You mention the Norwegian academic and his change of mind and it reminded me of my wish to have a white Oslo Xmas in 2019 The temperature over the Xmas ,New Year period seldom dropped below freezing and we had a minimum cover of snow in Oslo that lasted one day .Xmas temperature would normally be well below freezing On new years eve a community drift of children and adults meandered towards a public space where community leaders gave stirring reminders of the Norwegian culture, ethics and personality. Then the Bonfire was lit and the celebrations began.
Move a couple of days and the expats and the locals are all watching the Australian bush fires in disbelief at the tragedy. The performance of our PM on international television was commented on by all and the general comment was one of amazement and disappointment at his total lack of genuine empathy and leadership . As an Australian I was embarrassed that this man was our leader . Comparing his performance with the leaders of a small Norwegian community on New Years Eve his performance was pathetic.
The total population of the three main Scandinavian countries is similar to that of Australia these countries have a very unique outlook on life and community it is not surprising that a very young person can be sufficiently motivated by her upbringing and beliefs to start a worldwide uprising of the young. There is no doubt Greta Thunberg is an exceptional and impatient young person. She sees the need to change and agitates eloquently and truthfully as she pursues the greedy and ignorant as they continue to push the planet to the tipping point. I have no doubt that whatever the future holds Greta Thunberg will be considered one of the most prominent and successful voices in the fight to slow climate change . Sadly our PM will be remembered for all the wrong reasons.Lets hope the young leaders like Greta Thunberg can change the world . We need more Thunbergs and less Morrisons
Australian ‘narratives’ preclude anything much that is grounded in reality or science…. Even many if not most farmers have witnessed warming and changing climate since the ’80s, but you will never hear about it in media; versus the Nats line.
Knitting Nannas, possibly direct descendants of the Kelly’s Bush activists in the 70s, show what is possible.
Please Explain
If one is not a radical at 20 one lacks heart – at 30 it’s brains that are lacking.
However, by one’s Fourth Age (child, scholar, parent, sage) radicalism is recognised as the only valid stance.
The young have enthusiasm, too often transient, but lack experience – oldies have seen more than they need (to know the score) and have only their descendants to lose.
Thanks for that I agree 100% Maybe we could help the young to stop our polluters from destroying their chance of enjoying the planet as we the older and luckier have
For yoof, it’s always as Dylan sang on Another Side – “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now”.
When I was young I thought my elders stupid but as I’ve grown I was amazed by how much they’d learned in the meantime.
Imogen, Love you work. Had a few chuckles. Brought basck a few good memories. But sad – They just don’t understand. Gathered in their own importance and doing nothing to save the World.
Become an activist or let it happen, the first step you take in support of climate change activism is a good start. God will not save us nor will our PM
It was billed as our last chance. Looks like we blew it.