At COP26, 100,000 march for climate justice

Though united by their passion about climate change, the thousands of people converged on Glasgow Green also called for change on a diverse array of issues.

There were labor organizers, Black Lives Matter activists, advocates for Indigenous sovereignty, farmers, immigrants, feminists, Marxists.

“The fight for climate justice and the fight for social justice must go hand in hand,” Roz Foyer, general secretary for the Scottish Trades Union Congress, declared in a speech.

“We know the billionaires, the bosses and the politicians who run this planet are not going to make the changes that we need,” she said. “We need to build a huge and angry and a powerful movement for change. … Let’s make today that we all joined together.”

Kangaroos standing in a scorched forest, pigs and cows carted off to slaughter, penguins and polar bears watching their homes melt away. As countries negotiate in Glasgow, Scotland, on how to stave off climate disaster, photographers around the world are showcasing how the effects of human-made climate change are harming more than just humans.

The Earth Project, a climate action advocacy organization, announced Saturday the winners and runners up of a contest where photographers were asked to submit images representing the toll human behavior is having on the rest of the world’s living creatures. Their goal: to bring attention to the climate emergency.

Hundreds of Scots in favor of independence from Britain were among those protesting in Glasgow, many waving the blue-and-white Saltire, Scotland’s national flag. Some wore kilts, nevermind the rain.

Glasgow, Scotland’s most populous city, has a strong independence movement, which has gained momentum since Britain’s departure form the European Union.

“We want powers in our own hands,” said Ewan McGregor, 50, a gardener who shares the same name and age and nationality as the Star Wars actor. “Scotland ran itself a few hundred years ago, and we were more successful then.”

About a mile away from Glasgow Green, the destination of the climate justice march, a group of protestors seemed to be running late, and favoring a different route. The horde of more than 30 people marched, with music blaring from a truck, while a lady sang.

The group attempted to cross a bridge over the River Clyde, only to be stopped by a police officers and a police van blocking the street. The group chanted, “Let us through! Let us through!”

Meanwhile, five city buses and several cars were stuck behind the protestors, waiting to also move through and continue along with their day.

More than 100,000 demonstrators flooded the streets of Glasgow for the COP26 climate justice march, according to protest organizers.

“Today the people who have been locked out of this climate summit had their voices heard,” Asad Rehman, a spokesperson for the COP26 Coalition, said in a statement. “Those voices will be ringing in the ears of world leaders as we enter the second week of negotiations.”

The COP26 coalition, which organized the day’s events, is a Britain-based umbrella group for dozens of nonprofits, youth groups, trade unions and other activist organizations focused on climate justice.

There were the young climate marchers on Saturday. And then the truly young climate marchers.

Like Ewen Corke, 8, of Fife, Scotland, who wore a shirt that read: “Sorry I can’t tidy my bedroom, I am too busy saving the planet.”

Ewen traveled to the protest Saturday with his parents, Liz and Tom, and his 6-year-old brother, Ruis.

They joined a small army of protesters who had brought along their children to witness the moment. Babies in strollers, toddlers riding on their fathers’ shoulders, elementary-school students joining in chants or waving signs including one that read, “I might be small but I can make a big difference.”

Actor Idris Elba joined COP26 on Saturday to put a spotlight on climate change’s impact on the world’s food supply.

The matter may have seemed a little off-topic for the star of the HBO series “The Wire” and, more recently, “Suicide Squad,” but he said the issue is an urgent one.

“If you’re anything like me and you see a well-known face on a celebrity in a forum like this, you still wonder why they’re there sometimes,” Elba said. “But I’ll tell you why I’m here — why we’re here — is because this conversation around food is something that needs to be really amplified. And one thing I’ve got is a big mouth.”

Extinction Rebellion is part of the more radical arm of the climate-change protest movement. Its message: Climate change is an emergency that requires drastic and immediate action.

The group’s tactics test public tolerance for social and economic disruption.

Launched in a small English town in the Cotswolds, Extinction Rebellion has grown in parallel to the climate strike protests inspired by teenage Swedish activist Greta Thunberg. It has attracted not just schoolchildren but also young professionals, parents, grannies and others concerned about climate change and habitat loss. And, pretty much from the beginning, Extinction Rebellion’s strategy has been very different from that of the students skipping school on Fridays to protest peacefully.