Climate change: Tens of thousands of activists demand faster climate action outside UN summit

Climate activists attend a protest organized by the COP26 Coalition in London, Saturday, Nov. 6, 2021. Photo/AP

Tens of thousands of climate activists marched Saturday through Glasgow, the Scottish city hosting the UN climate summit, physically close to the global negotiators inside but separated by a vast gulf in expectations, with frustrated marchers increasingly dismissive of the climate talks and demanding immediate action instead to slow global warming.

The mood at the protest in Glasgow was upbeat despite the complaints and bursts of rain. Climate protests were also held across Europe, including in London, Paris, Dublin, Copenhagen, Zurich and Istanbul.

Protesters condemned government leaders around the world, saying the climate talks so far have failed to produce the fast action needed. Activist Greta Thunberg on Friday condemned the talks as just more "blah, blah, blah".

Glasgow right now! pic.twitter.com/h9gtwalng3

— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) November 6, 2021

"We're having these conversations, but there's no policies to actually back them," said Daze Aghaji, a marcher from London at the Glasgow demonstration, shouting over the steady beat of the drums.

"And on top of that, the real people should be in the room," Aghaji said, echoing complaints that the Glasgow summit has too sharply limited participation by the public. "How are we expecting to make decent policy when the people who are the stakeholders of this aren't even present in the room?"

Marchers held signs with messages including "Code Red for Humanity," "Stop big polluters," "COP26, we are watching you" or simply "I'm angry." One sign asked "If not you, then who? If not now, then when?"

Climate activists gather in Trafalgar Square in front of the National Gallery as they take part in a protest through the streets of London, Saturday, Nov. 6, 2021. Photo/AP

Megan McClellan, 24, of Glasgow said she doubted that climate negotiators were listening.

"This is a very easy thing for them to ignore. They're nice and comfortable" inside the summit conference centre, she said, which is ringed by steel fences.

But her friend Lucette Wood, 30, of Edinburgh disagreed.

"They might not actually do anything about it but they pretend that they do ... and they will just put it off for 20-30 years," Wood said.

Whether a tactic to increase pressure on governments or a rejection of the negotiations, Thunberg's dismissive talk of the two-week summit — which has another week to go — has resonated inside and outside the summit site. Government leaders and negotiators say they are equally aware as marchers of the urgency of their task, with time slipping away to rein in pollution from fossil fuels before the Earth faces much higher levels of warming.

Marcher Jason Cook, 54, came to Glasgow with two friends and all three wore helmets bearing the word "blah".

Cook, like other marchers, echoed Thunberg's words: "We don't want to hear any more blah, blah, blah," he said.

Climate activists hold up banners during a protest organized by the Cop26 Coalition in Glasgow, Scotland, Saturday, Nov. 6, 2021. Photo/AP

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been one of many global leaders acknowledging Thunberg's phrase as they defend progress made by governments in raising promises of emissions cuts and climate financing.

Elizabeth May, a Canadian member of parliament and 16-time participant in the UN climate talks, joined the Glasgow demonstrators on Saturday.

"Overwhelmingly, the protests make a difference," May said. "Most of the people on the inside are here in their hearts and sometimes physically."

Inside the huge UN conference venue, negotiators knuckled down for a seventh straight day of talks amongst almost 200 nations to finish draft agreements that can be passed to government ministers for political approval next week. Among the issues being haggled over are a fresh commitment to capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius, getting countries to review their efforts more frequently to increase the pressure for deeper cuts, and providing more financial support for poor nations to adapt to climate change.

The summit's president, Alok Sharma, told reporters he understood protesters' frustration.

"I think we have overall made progress," Sharma said Saturday. "I think people have been constructive in the negotiating rooms."

"We are getting to the point where the rubber hits the road, where we're going to have to make, you know, tough decisions" by government officials, he said. "I don't, certainly do not, underestimate the difficulty of the task which is ahead of us."

Saturday's marches drew a range of participants and ages, a day after tens of thousands of young people in the Fridays for Future movement protested outside the Glasgow conference's fences. Thunberg's mix of school strikes, blunt and impatient talk about government excuses, and mass demonstrations have galvanised climate protests since 2018, especially in Europe.

The climate protest movement — and the worsening droughts, storms, floods, wildfires and other disasters around the world this year — have brought home to many the accelerating damage of global warming and have kept the pressure on governments for stronger and faster action to reduce fossil fuel emissions.

In central London, hundreds of climate protesters marched from the Bank of England to Trafalgar Square. Protester Sue Hampton, 64, said everyone is at risk and all generations need to press for action.

"We can't let the young people do all the work here. We've all got to do it together," she said.

In Istanbul, climate protesters brought their children to the demonstration on Saturday, emphasising the impact of global warming on future generations.

"I want my children to live on a beautiful planet in the future," said Kadriye Basut, 52, in Istanbul.

- Danica Kirka in London, Seth Borenstein in Glasgow and Andrew Wilks in Istanbul contributed to this report.