Dear friends,

The last few weeks have been a blast! From The Ground Up: Global Gathering for Climate Justice has seen 8000 registrations for 53 sessions. But we are just getting started, with some massive mobilisations ahead of us over the next year! 

Here’s how you can join us in the coming months:

👥 We are holding an All Coalition Meeting on the 3rd December at 7pm, to reflect on the Global Gathering, and to discuss the road ahead of us until COP26. Everyone is welcome to join! 

⚠️ On 12th December, the UK government is going to use the five year anniversary of the Paris-Agreement to put out a bunch of hogwash to look green and “ambitious”. We all know that the UK government and their corporate allies are pushing for a death sentence with net-zero 2050. Stay tuned for our plan to let them know that we aren’t falling for their lies.

 🌸In Spring, we will hold From the Ground Up 2, focused on how our movement across the world is resisting governments and corporations, and how we can use these strategies to disrupt business as usual in the lead-up to COP26. 

Tune into this newsletter’s soundtrack while reading, and subscribe to our joint Coalition Calendar to keep up to date with coming actions and gatherings.

Get involved!

If you have time and capacity to lend us, please join one of our upcoming working group meetings: 

• Comms WG, Every Wednesday, 10am

• Global Solidarity, Wednesday 2nd December, 5pm

• Trade Union Group, Tuesday, 8th December, 6pm

• Policy and Perspectives, Tuesday, 8th December, 7pm

• Glasgow Local, Wednesday 9th November, 6pm

Do you hate greenwashing? Want to call out governments and corporations for their false solutions? Work for us! We’re looking for an experienced Scottish campaigner to join the COP26 Coalition as a Mobilisations and Digital Engagement Officer, to help us bring hundreds of thousands of people to the streets next year! The deadline is 7 December, apply here!

Our logistics group has been busy and hosted a few meetings on how to best support our international allies in coming to Glasgow next year. One of the most important discussions was on how we should help organise venues during COP26. If you’ve missed this, we have recorded the meeting here with some excellent presentations on COP26 and Venues.

On Monday, our pals at Stop Climate Chaos Scotland are hosting a webinar on Finance and Climate Justice, on the need for increased climate finance to global-south countries hit hard by climate change, and Scotland’s role in creating such change. Join here! 

Right now until November 19, young people from across the world are taking responsibility while adults aren’t: Watch this video from young climate activists calling out governments on their failures, join them in debates during Mock COP, and let’s all hope that our governments are going to copy some of their homework from the youth.

And if your appetites for webinars and zoom discussions is still not satisfied, come to the Right to Energy Forum 2020 to debate energy poverty, how it affects those worst off the most, and how we can create a united movement to end energy poverty across the world.

Help the Kick Polluters Out Campaign get to 15,000 signatures to keep Polluters away from COP26 (they’re almost there!). This is especially important considering that one of the sponsors of COP26 is the second worst polluter in Scotland.

News and Resources 

• This month, the Philippines was struck by Typhoon Vamco and Typhoon Goni. On the other side of the world, millions of people were still picking up the pieces after Hurricane Etadevastated Central America, when Hurricane Iota struck. Some 3 million people are affected in Honduras alone. Hundreds are missing and presumed dead. Meanwhile, the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu is bracing itself for another storm even as it assesses the damage wrought by Cyclone Nivar. It is of course one of the cruel ironies of climate chaos that while some are inundated, others are experiencing drought. This week the United Nations Food and Agriculture Agency released findings that across Africa, 50 million people are affected by catastrophic droughtevery three years.
• The relentless and worsening ecological crisis demands an appropriate response from leaders. Such a response is not, however, forthcoming. This month the UK government took a short break from deporting Black Brits to announce a “10 point plan” to achieve “net” zero emissions by 2050. They tried to sell it as a green industrial revolution. As this excellent analysis shows, it is neither green nor revolutionary. Pillars of the plan – such as “jet” zero aviation and promises of hydrogen fuel – have been dismissed as wishful thinking at best or a deliberate attempt to greenwash business-as-usual at worst. With the recent spending announcements, it has also become clear that the 10-point plan approaches climate change as if it were another fish in the searather than the water itself. 
• The government also made clear in the spending announcement that they have no intention of honouring international commitments – signalling that it will cut “overseas development assistance” from 0.7% to 0.5% of the country’s gross national income, or several billion pounds per year. While this did prompt awidespread negative reaction, many of the complaints were revealing: foreign aid is very much seen as a tool to exert British “soft” power, for the UK to get what it wants, rather than for the UK to right a wrong or truly help those in need. 
• The UK is not alone in being a climate laggard! This week a report from Corporate Europe Observatory and Change Finance laid bare how the EU Commission wilfully ignored conflict of interest when hiring BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager and major funder of fossil fuels, to look at how to make banking more sustainable. And on the other side of the pond, the initial excitement (relief?) around what a Biden-Harris administration would mean for the US’ climate agenda subsided into a sort of bored disappointment as John Kerry was appointed “climate czar” in what looks more like a throwback to the Obama heyday than the necessary overhaul of US climate diplomacy. 
• In Scottish news, residents near the Mossmorran plant are still going strong in their protests against Shell and Exxon, and won’t accept empty words from the Scottish government. If you’re in the Kingdom of Fife, join them every Saturday at noon! 
• Also in Fife, the Scottish government has finally decided to openly let workers down at the BiFab engineering firm. Instead of using the construction yards to manufacture windfarms urgently needed for an energy transition, the Scottish government gave contracts to firms abroad, saving money in the short term, but at a much higher emissions rate due to transportation, letting down workers and communities in Fife. 
• Meanwhile in Germany, Ende Gelände is calling for major blockades this Sunday to ensure the survival of Dannenwälder Forest to save 1000 hectares of old forest from being destroyed. Watch this space, and let’s keep a record of the strategies and tactics for later next year!

And remember, if you have exciting news and resources from our movement, send them to us so that we can share!