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To find out more about UAL's Carnival of Crisis, email climatenetwork@arts.ac.uk.

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This Page is [ARCHIVED CONTENT] and shows what the site page https://ukcop26.org/uk-presidency/what-is-a-cop/ looked like on 1 Apr 2023 at 05:49:04

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What an incredible few months it's been. We rolled up our sleeves, put our bodies on the line, and made the Impossible Rebellion defy all expectations. We led with our hearts and danced on pink tables, making the climate and ecological emergency impossible to ignore. It was beautiful, unpredictable and incredibly powerful in ways that no one saw coming.

The Impossible Rebellion taught us about the power of people coming together for a shared cause, highlighting the UK Government's blatant inaction on the emergency. While we block bridges to demand they stop investing in fossil fuels, the government continues to gaslight us by telling us to fly more to cut emissions, and wash our dishes differently. They've even signed up the Wombles to lead on their strategy of distract and delay! It's an embarrassment and a disgrace.

We cannot trust them to do what's necessary at COP26. The Climate and Ecological Emergency is a Crime Against Humanity perpetrated by the rich and powerful, and the COP process is systematically corrupted by vested interests - national, corporate and financial.
GOING BEYOND COP
The truth is, we can not rely on COP. Nothing on the table in the run up to COP26 resembles a compassionate and functional response to the crisis, so why should we place any faith in the summit itself?

What we expect is catastrophic failure, which will be spun by the government as a success to an unsuspecting public. Both the governments represented and the NGOs will be promoting an atmosphere of optimism and possibility. Our role is to tell the truth, to expose both the failings and the falsehoods, to force leaders to confront the reality and the consequences of their failure and offer people a meaningful route to change through Citizens' Assemblies.

Extinction Rebellion as a movement is capable of setting its own agenda and schedule. We're not bound by the political calendar. Our theory of change has achieved most success when we act within our own timeline and when politicians and the media least expect it.

Therefore, Extinction Rebellion UK takes the following position:

Extinction Rebellion must not legitimise a process that has failed all of us for the past 25 years. Extinction Rebellion was set up with a clear focus: to push the UK Government to act swiftly on the CEE. There is a need for local, national and international action, but using civil resistance in the UK is our role in the climate movement landscape. Attending COP should be seen as an act of solidarity, we can pass the mic to our friends in the Global South, come together with the Movement of Movements, connect and build our community, but we must be ready for the real job in hand: mass civil resistance in 2022.

For those who do choose to go, we will do so to accuse leaders of crimes against humanity, bringing a declaration that is based on telling the truth about legalised corruption and systemic failure. We will not go to demand, plead or hold onto expectations.

We will support disruptive action in Glasgow as far as possible without over commiting on resources. We are assessing our strategic focus and planning for the most efficient and effective use of those resources.

We will amplify the voices of those on the front lines. We will continue to stand in solidarity with communities of resistance across the global majority world. We will be offered many media opportunities during COP no matter what we do, so we have a responsibility to use those opportunities to support our global family to be heard. COP has a global focus, so we can platform our global movement of movements.

We will go beyond COP. We will use the momentum from the Impossible Rebellion and COP26 to continue with mass outreach and mobilisation for Rebellion in 2022. This means going back into our communities now and building our local groups, getting trained and training others, knocking on doors and talking to people - why not continue holding your own Crisis Talks? Because power belongs to the people, not with the COP process.

If you are going to COP, here's how to find out what's going on and get involved:
GLASGOW ACTIONS
If you're already planning to go to Glasgow during COP26 then rebels are actively encouraged to consider how they will take disruptive decentralised actions and work collaboratively with XR Scotland - the host nation, when planning actions. Read more about the plan here and their rebel agreement here, and join XR Scotland Telegram channel here for live updates.
XR COP GLOBAL ACTIONS
You don't need to be in Glasgow to take action. XR COP Actions are inviting rebels everywhere around the world to take action in their local areas.Read how to get involved more on Mattermost here, and join the Global Actions Network Telegram channel for live updates.
CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY
XR UK invites rebels to 'present'/fly-post charge sheets for 'Crimes Against Humanit y' at local constituencies in a decentralised and creative way across the country from October 27th onwards. Keep updated on this action info and UK wide actions via the XRUK Telegram channel here.
REBELLION OF 11th HOUR
XR UK invites rebels to take part from home in the biggest ever Rebellion of One action every day at the eleventh hour (11am) during COP26 (1-12th Nov). Rebels around the world are invited to unite in sending a collective message to Global Governments. to find out more about Global Ro11th Hour action.
'UbuntuPachaVidya' - Co-Liberation Series of #PlanetRepairs Festivities of Cultural Resistance
XR ISN invites rebels on November 10th to the Brixton night Vigil for Ken Saro-Wiwa and on

November 11th, Vane(Ghana)-Brixton/London/Glasgow(United Kingdom) to this 'glocal' Summit as an alternative #COP26 process and our own unifying peoples' power to be the change. Find out morehere.

In 2022, when global governments show us once again they are not capable of tackling this crisis, many people will all be asking, "So, what do we do now?"

Our response to that will be mass nonviolent civil disobedience. Because it's people who have the power - not World leaders.

With Love & Rage,

Extinction Rebellion UK

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Extinction Rebellion UK position on COP26 - Extinction Rebellion UK

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PEOPLE HAVE THE POWER - NOT 'WORLD LEADERS' What an incredible few months it's been. We rolled up our sleeves, put our bodies on the line, and made the Impossible Rebellion defy all expectations. We led with our hearts and danced on pink tables, making the climate and ecological emergency impossible to ignore.

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Vital United Nations climate talks, billed as one of the last chances to stave off climate breakdown, will not produce the breakthrough needed to fulfil the aspiration of the Paris agreement, key players in the talks have conceded.

The UN, the UK hosts and other major figures involved in the talks have privately admitted that the original aim of the Cop26 summit will be missed, as the pledges on greenhouse gas emissions cuts from major economies will fall short of the halving of global emissions this decade needed to limit global heating to 1.5C.

Senior observers of the two-week summit due to take place in Glasgow this November with 30,000 attenders, said campaigners and some countries would be disappointed that the hoped-for outcome will fall short.

However, the UN, UK and US insisted that the broader goal of the conference - that of "keeping 1.5C alive" - was still in sight, and that world leaders meeting in Glasgow could still set a pathway for the future that would avoid the worst ravages of climate chaos.

That pathway, in the form of a "Glasgow pact", would allow for future updates to emissions pledges in the next few years that could be sufficient for the world to stay within scientific advice on carbon levels.

A senior UN official said: "We are not going to get to a 45% reduction, but there must be some level of contributions on the table to show the downward trend of emissions."

A UK official said: "Cop26 will not deliver all that we want [on emissions]." But the UK, charged as host with delivering a successful outcome, is hoping that progress will be made on other issues, including phasing out coal, providing climate finance to poor countries, and improving the protection of forests.

A US official told the Guardian countries must still aim as high as possible on emissions cuts: "We are going to try to achieve [the emissions cuts necessary]. No one in the administration wants to admit defeat before we have made the maximum effort. You should set an ambitious agenda and may have to, in the end, take baby steps but you should plan for long strides. We are taking long strides."

Lord Nicholas Stern, the climate economist, said falling short on emissions plans should not be equated with failure. "I agree with [the UN] and most observers that we will not close that gap [between emissions pledges and scientific advice] completely," he said. "But we should hope for good progress in closing that gap and we should hope for mechanisms and ways forward on how we close that gap further between now and 2025. That's the way we should think about what is a good, or better, or worse result - a language of success or failure doesn't seem to me to be very helpful."

At the Paris climate summit in December 2015, 196 nations agreed to hold global temperature rises to "well below 2C" with an aspiration to limit rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. But the pledges on emissions - known as nationally determined contributions, or NDCs - they brought to the French capital were not enough to fulfil either goal, and would have led to catastrophic heating of at least 3C.

For that reason, the French hosts wrote into the agreement a "ratchet mechanism" that would require countries to return to the negotiating table every five years with fresh targets to meet the temperature goals. Cop26, which was postponed by a year because of Covid, is the fifth Cop - conference of the parties - since Paris.

Some people would be disappointed by the admission that the high hopes for an outcome that would fulfil the Paris aspiration would not be met, said Mary Robinson, chair of the Elders Group, former UN climate envoy and former president of Ireland. "The NDCs will be disappointing, given the urgency and given the climate impacts. It is disappointing that leaders have not been able to step up enough. But the momentum will be there, and that's very important. I am determined to be hopeful."

She said the original conception of the Paris agreement, of returning every five years, should be revised so that countries would be asked to return every year with their plans.

The UN takes a similar view. "The Paris agreement built this five-year cycle of ambition, but there is nothing preventing a country from reviewing and updating its NDC next year," said the senior UN official.

"Cop26 is a very important milestone but it should not be seen as the end of the game, where we give up on 1.5C," he added. "[It] will signal that 1.5C remains in reach [through] a combination of NDCs, negotiated outcomes and signals in the real economy."

While the UK, the US and the EU have submitted NDCs requiring much stiffer cuts than those proposed at Paris, the world's biggest emitter - China - has yet to submit an NDC, and has only indicated that it will cause emissions to peak by 2030, which experts said was not enough to hold the world to 1.5C.

Alok Sharma, the UK cabinet minister who is Cop26 president-designate, said: "Cop26 has always been about delivering urgent action to ensure we keep the path to a 1.5C world alive. Those nations which have submitted new and ambitious climate plans are already bending the curve of emissions downwards by 2030. But we continue to push for increased ambition from the G20 to urgently close the emissions gap. The clock is ticking, and Cop26 must be the turning point where we change the course of history for the better."

China has still not said whether president Xi Jinping will attend Cop26, causing consternation among climate diplomats who fear China will make no major move at the summit. Relations with China and the US and the UK have been strained by the announcement of the Aukus defence pact with Australia, and by trade differences.

Other countries have also failed to come up with improved NDCs, including Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, Russia and Saudi Arabia. India is also the subject of intense diplomacy, as the world's fourth-biggest emitter after the EU.

Campaigners said the focus should be on the biggest emitters. Mitzi Jonelle Tan, an activist for Fridays for Future in the Philippines, who joined the youth climate strike last Friday, said: "We have seen how big polluters, like the US and China, have promised and pledged less than what is needed from them in the past, yet have fallen short on those every time. Unlike the so-called leaders who like to cheer themselves on for subpar speeches [at the UN], the youth aren't impressed."

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Cop26 climate talks will not fulfil aims of Paris agreement, key players say

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Vital United Nations climate talks, billed as one of the last chances to stave off climate breakdown, will not produce the breakthrough needed to fulfil the aspiration of the Paris agreement, key players in the talks have conceded.