Welcome to the second edition of The Rising Clyde, a newsletter from the COP26 Coalition!

Before you go on, click here to have the best possible soundtrack for your reading experience. Thanks for all the positive feedback we received on our first newsletter, please keep in mind that this is made by Coalition members, so feel free to submit articles, resources, videos,  and other spirit-lifting links here!

News from across the Coalition

We’re currently working to make it easier to get involved with the Coalition. To make it easier to find all the dates and meetings, we have a shared calendar now! Also, we’re currently working on a welcome pack for new members on how to get involved in the coalition, if you have ideas for that, let us know!

Our Working groups

• Political Strategy: We will be launching a speaker series in September: “Boiling point: Everything you wanted to know about COP but were too afraid to ask”, introducing you to people with specific knowledge about and experience of the UN climate change negotiations, its history, processes and potential. Registration details will be available in our next newsletter! 
• Global Solidarity: We have held our 2nd International Assembly, where we discussed and developed exciting plans for this November with our international allies – an online People’s Summit and possible decentralised mobilisations. Check out this short video of Alex Etchard’s amazing music contribution. 
• Logistics: After a long pause, we are finally coming back! Come to our first meeting in September to figure out how we get things moving on the ground!
• Communications: We’re in the process of finalising our long-awaited new website, and are outlining first steps for the Coalition’s communication strategy, spokespeople list, media database and social media presence. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube! 
• Glasgow Local: We’re working on a prototype database on civil society organisations, by the Glasgow COP Collective, as well as on our proposal on how we want to contribute to the online summit. 
• Mobilisations: At our last meeting, we discussed how we can reach out to wider networks in Scotland and the UK, to activate organisations not yet in the coalition for our online summit, and for climate justice generally. We also want to provide training and skill-shares for decentralised protests and actions this November. 
• Culture: It’s been a while, but we will reconvene on 25 August, 6pm. Message Kat if you would like to join!

Meet the Coordinating Committee

Since June, we have had an operational Coordinating Committee in place, with  representatives nominated from working groups and civil society constituencies. Reflecting the breadth and diversity of the UK and Scottish climate movement, the Committee will steer the Coalition going forward towards COP. Here’s the current composition of the full Committee:

• Global Solidarity: Anca Giurgiu (London Mining Network), Dorothy Guerrero (Global Justice Now)
• Political Strategy: Ashish Ghadiali  (Wretched of the Earth), Olivia Hanks (Quakers)
• Logistics: Minnie Rahman (Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants), Nick Cullen (Stop Climate Chaos Scotland)
• Fundraising: Asad Rehman (War on Want), Mary Church (Friends of the Earth Scotland)
• Mobilisations: Yvonne Blake (MORE – Migrants Organising for Rights and Empowerment), Dylan Hamilton/Anna Brown (Scottish Youth Climate Strikers)
• Glasgow Local: Roz Corbett (Landworkers’ Alliance)
• Culture: Kat Jones (Stop Climate Chaos Scotland)
• Communications: Nathan Thanki (Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice)
• Interim Coordination Group: Shan Stephens (350), Nish Doshi
• Unions: Sam Mason (Public and Commercial Services Union), Stephen Smellie (UNISON Scotland)
• Youth Strikers: Macsen Brown/Aoife Mercedes (UK Student Climate Network)
• Extinction Rebellion: George (Extinction Rebellion UK)
• Direct Action Groups: Lise Masson (Reclaim the Power)

We’re aware that this is not perfectly representative of our movement yet, and are working to involve more constituencies we would like to see in our coalition, such as Scottish direct action groups, Faith Groups, and representatives for people with disabilities.

Get involved!

We are holding an online people’s summit 12 to 16 November 2020, and we formed a project team to hammer out the details so that our working groups can fill it with amazing content. Would you like to join? Our next online summit meeting is on Tuesday, 18th of August, at 12pm! If you can’t join, but would like to contribute your ideas, leave your comments on our slack channel!

We’re not the first ones to organise around a COP, and it’s important for us to understand the strategies, tactics, and challenges organisers at previous COPs have faced. If you have been involved in civil society organising around COPs in the past, please fill in this survey on past COPs for us – and forward it to anyone you know who was involved. Here’s the English, the Spanish, and the French version!

Would you be interested in being a spokesperson for the coalition, or to work on media and messaging going forward? Neon’s Press Officer Network is organising a training this September, with spaces for a few coalition members to attend – contact us if you’d be up for it!

Our next international assembly will take place mid-September. If your organisation is based outside of the UK and you would like to get involved, or if you have contacts to groups and networks in the Global South, message Anca and Dottie!

News and Resources

• How do we make the most of COP26? In this open letter to the UK climate movement, Dario Kenner argues that we must wrestle with fossil fuel corporations’ influence over the UK government. Related to this, here’s a good article on four major opportunities that COP26 presents for the UK climate justice movement, by Nathan Thanki and Asad Rehman.
• At the last summit, EU leaders managed to forge a compromise on the COVID-19 Recovery package by cutting their just transition fund and their Horizon research programme to appease northern Europe. But, as Corporate Europe Observatory notes, even if they hadn’t, the EU’s green new deal is anything but green:  The EU’s plan neither challenges fossil fuels, nor does it rethink the european economy to tackle the financial, social and ecological crisis. The EU continues to promote false, market-based solutions and technological fixes, and promotes climate targets that Greta Thunberg called a “surrender”.
• Speaking of Greta, here is an hour-long reading in which she reflects on her trip to North America and back, the false language used by those in power to cloud climate science, and the role of the media in (mis)communicating the crisis.
• Dorothy Guerrero has written a great article on how the G20 continue to ignore calls to cancel the illegitimate debts of the world’s poorest countries and stop funding fossil fuels.
• The Scottish Government pretends that Scotland is much more of a climate leader than the UK is. But Scotland has a long history of both aiding British colonialism as well as contributing to the climate crisis with Scottish oil and gas. Steve Rushton argues that Scotland needs to face up to its colonial legacy to be a truly progressive country, and that the independence movement needs to include Scotland’s history of slavery and climate crimes in their conversations.
• Here is a recording of a great webinar by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation “In Search of a Decolonial, Feminist Green New Deal”, with great speakers from the global feminist movement.
• To follow up on last-edition’s story about Australian geoengineering, a small team of Australian engineers have recently defied an international moratorium on geoengineering to test cloud brightening, even though it could lead to droughts and other climate disruptions in vulnerable regions.
• The UK government, despite their climate pledges, is using $1 billion UK tax payers money to finance the “biggest ever” gas projects with Mozambique LNG, which Friends of the Earth calls “Gross Hypocrisy”, given the UK’s climate commitments.

And finally, we all know that all of society needs to step up on climate change. So, here’s Police Scotland doing their best. (On a more serious note, this is them at their worst)