In conversation with young and veteran climate activists at the United Nations climate change conference.
Earlier this month, hundreds of thousands of delegates and observers descended on Glasgow, Scotland, for COP26, the annual United Nations climate change summit between hundreds of international governments worldwide. Not only were governments in attendance but also indigenous communities, climate activists, and businesses. So many people were in Glasgow that an accommodation shortage arose, leading to locals reopening a disused building after reports of indigenous activists having to sleep rough. As I spoke to fellow youth activists during the event, it became clear that it wasn’t easy for everyone to attend COP this year. One person from Uganda told me that he had to sail to Glasgow on Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior ship. At the same time, an activist from India struggled to obtain a visa due to being from an indigenous community where most people don’t have documentation. In the end, both activists made it to Glasgow.
Below are some of the other activists who traveled to Glasgow for the summit. I photographed them, and we spoke about our feelings on how it was all going so far.
MINORI, 16, FRIDAYS FOR FUTURE, JAPAN
“I want a future where no one is suffering from the climate crisis anymore,” Minori says. We’re in the kitchen of the ‘FFF Hub’, a community center lent out to Fridays for Future activists as a space to gather outside of the COP venue. “Before I came to COP26, my focus was to protect our future. But here, I’ve learned that MAPA (Most Affected People and Areas) people are suffering right now. So, to stop climate change, I have to be focused on what’s happening now.” Despite being at COP, Minori has no hope for the summit. Instead her “hope comes from fellow activists who are taking action against climate change” rather than from “government policies and strategies.”
INSVILAINE, 25, ENGAJAMUNDO, BRAZIL
“I try not to think about the future because I don’t think we’ll be here. I don’t know what we’ll be doing in 10 years, and I don’t know what I’ll be doing tomorrow, so I don’t have a lot of hope for the future, unfortunately,” says Insvliaine, waiting to pass security checks to get inside the summit. She’s part of Engajamundo, a Brazilian youth-led organization that aims to increase the representation of young people in global climate decision-making. She says she finds it strange being at COP, sitting next to the politicians of her country, and being able to talk to some of them without barriers, but “it’s still sad to see how the Brazilian government is so against civil society.” When I ask her if she has any hope for the outcome of the summit, she says immediately without hesitation, “not at all!.. I hope that I’m wrong, but I’m expecting nothing from this conference.”
DAVID, 62, EXTINCTION REBELLION, ENGLAND
David is part of a wave of activists from the U.K. who went to Glasgow to participate in protests surrounding the COP26 instead of partaking in it directly. He says he got involved in climate activism in 2015, “it’s a sort of continuation of activism I was involved in in the 1980s, around things like racism and South Africa”. David reveals he was kettled earlier in the week by police for several hours; he was refused access to water, toilet facilities, and medication. He also thinks the climate movement today is much more diverse than it was 20 years ago and that it has succeeded in bringing the climate crisis to public consciousness. “If I live another 20 years, I feel like I’ll have lived a very full and enjoyable life. My concern is that I really want a future for your generation. Your lives are ahead of you… what I fight for is a better future for all of you”.
EMMA, 53, EXTINCTION REBELLION, ENGLAND
“I’m terrified, and I’m heartbroken. I feel heartbroken for what’s happening because people are already dying, and politicians are totally failing us,” explains Emma, talking to me outside the COP26 venue where she is protesting on its last scheduled day. She thinks that the climate movement today needs to focus on divestment; “we need to be taking the funding out of oil and gas. Our pension funds, our universities, our councils, and our banks, we need to go after them next because that’s where our money is going to, it’s paying for the devastation of people’s lives and of our planet”. Emma, like Minori, also finds hope in the unity she’s witnessed at COP26. “I feel really encouraged by what’s been happening around COP. We need our unions, we need everybody coming together, and we totally need our young people too”.
