A day of action & protest on climate change but campaigning needs to be stepped up & broadened
Saturday saw a range of actions around COP26. The media has some reports although the idea that ordinary people and extra-Parliamentary activity have a key role to play in politics doesn’t come easily to many media outlets.
The main protest was in (a wet) Glasgow where COP is being held. Organisers reported around 100,000 people which is a very large protest indeed against the size of the population even allowing for some that came from elsewhere.
Three thousand marched in Cardiff (which was less wet) which again for the Welsh capital is a very big march.
I was in London and started by attending a local climate rally in Haringey which heard from local MPs David Lammy and Catherine West as well as a good range of activists. It was also good to see a range of banners from environmental and green groups to Haringey TUC. David Lammy made a very telling point about the impact of colonisation on people movements around the globe and climate change and there was also a clear focus on local campaigns on climate issues.
I then headed off to the central London protest which ended in Trafalgar Square. There were screens on the plinth which had the impact of a 2020s campaign rather than just lots of speakers (tho there were those too).
The Square was packed so a protest of twenty thousand plus was there with a good mix of young and old. Some of what I suppose might be called the old left are now very old (that is even older than me) but the welcome impact of Stand Up to Racism and refugee campaigners put things very much in the present day.
As often on these occasions there is work to do in not just broadening but mobilising support. I spotted only one Labour Party banner (Hackney North) and a handful of trade union ones. Of course there is formal support for action on climate change but that needs turning into people coming out to protest.
A Saturday afternoon in a very busy central London may not be for everyone just now (and I think these were across the UK the biggest protests since March 2020) which is why organising locally at the grassroots in workplaces and communities while keeping a national and international perspective in mind.
Whatever does or does not come out of COP26 today’s protests show the potential for protest from below to mobilise on climate change.
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