Glasgow
With thanks to GARN for holding the 5th International Tribunal for the Rights of Nature during COP26.
I exited the Glasgow Queen Street Station to a city coloured by the conference. As hours pass, the intensity of this ebbs and flows in any given place. People coalesce, often drawn in by the flutter of flags or the rumble of drumming from XR activists. It’s rare to feel quite so welcome in a crowd of strangers and it’s near impossible not to feel moved by it all.
Within minutes I found myself standing and listening to the words of a doctor coming through a loud hailer and describing the medical impacts of environmental breakdown. I felt with a new kind of clarity everything that is slipping away. I cannot speak to the precise feeling at the time of previous conferences but it only takes a moment scanning the statistics to understand how grave a situation we are in today. There have been 25 Conferences of this kind to date, and global temperatures continue to soar. So now, there is no safety net. There is no room for delay or denial or distraction. Not an inch. It feels like people are conscious of this to such an extent that it is simultaneously motivating and crushing.
Moving into the afternoon and hearing evidence presented as part of the 5th International Tribunal for the Rights of Nature, there’s a sobering silence in the auditorium. Certain witnesses give rousing testimonies, applauding the knowledge systems of indigenous individuals and communities and condemning the atrocities knowingly committed by corporations like ExxonMobil. Equally damning accounts were made by the less dramatically presented but devastating descriptions of polluting operations of companies such as AES Gener in the Quintero Bay area of Chile.
These stories are not often the centre of our conversations and that has to change. Talking about the human beings at the coal face of ecocidal activity and climate crises is not a messaging ploy or clever tactic, it's just the human thing to be doing and a real reflection of what we’re up against. I noticed how myself and others would physically flinch each time the harm caused to children by proxy of systematic destruction of nature were brought into an argument. Their innocence seems the perfect contrast to the cruelty of those who have knowingly been hurting their health, wellbeing and their futures.
The catastrophes sparked by inaction and the urgency with which concerted international changes are needed, created a remarkable crescendo as the conference approached. I had a number of conversations in which the overriding feeling was of bated breath. People know the score and disappointment, to at least some extent, was deemed an inevitability. It is more than just the environmental damage that wears people down. It’s the broken promises. It’s the greenwashing and the big sweeping statements in speeches which mask the reality that we just aren’t doing enough.
I think most people have become used to hearing jarring figures and projections, be that melting sea ice, deforestation or the toxicity of waterways. Often we decide, consciously or not, that we aren’t in a place to hear it. I do not exempt myself from this tendency to tune out. However, a remedy that being in Glasgow has reminded me of is the unmatched power of standing in unison with other people. Yes, reading a lengthy report alone and after a long day is unlikely to place a fire in your belly to go out and demand change. I implore you, however, to find someone who can stand in a crowd of peaceful protesters holding signs which apologise to their children, their grandchildren and to people who are suffering from climatic collapse at this very moment, and feel nothing.
Many of these ideas I jotted down rather haphazardly between coffee shops and the location of particular events. Firstly, for many resistance is something one finds their way into through informing and educating themselves and for others it is a reaction to threats they are constantly faced with. For those of us in the former category we have a responsibility to centre the voices and demands of those in the latter. Secondly, something that I kept coming back to was that it is both a privilege and a kind of delusion to see COP26 as something to be excited about.
I chose my undergraduate degree in International Law and International Relations around two years ago and, since beginning my studies, have become evermore certain that I would like to pursue defence of the environment through legal means as my life goes on. Campaigning in various forms and for various purposes has also shaped my outlook and character since my early teens. So, as COP approached I had a curious mixture of feelings.
Firstly there is something exhilarating about the idea of the kind of things many of us read about and discuss in a personal capacity happening in real time at such an immense scale. There is something exciting about the prospect of agreements being formed, mentalities changing and like-minded people sharing such a supportive space. I think the tension at play, however, is down to a concern about getting carried away with optimism. There’s no point in looking at things through rose-tinted lenses. Rousing speeches are only as meaningful as the concrete action that they precede and more often than not, leaders know that it is a whole lot easier to say the right thing than to actually do it.
A number of testimonies made during the Rights of Nature tribunals brought this home with a real thud. I could write for pages about any one of these thoughts and will, I’m certain, be dwelling on them for a fair while. I’d like to share them with you so you have the chance to do the same. Firstly, certain individuals, groups have transformed the world we rely upon, mother nature, into a crime scene. Pollution and environmental damage is not a bi-product of business or something to be compensated for by massive profits but a violation of the rights of all that lives. Our legal systems are not built with eyes that see these crimes with clear vision. It is built to excuse and facilitate them. Individuals from across the world spoke via zoom. They gave evidence and told stories which described a planet on which morals and basic human values have, in heartbreakingly many cases, decomposed.
Being a part of the conference, even if that is through personal conversations, observations or virtual gatherings is deeply empowering. I have been reminded of the beauty of activism, of spontaneous gatherings of people who can see the depth of the emergency that faces us and still muster the energy to innovate, to resist and to mobilise others. I have been reminded of the enormity of it all and of certain simple facts, one of which I will leave you with now.
Case presenter, Gregorio Mirabal, as a part of his opening statement told us how “nature expresses itself in every minute and it cannot take anymore”.
For all of my uncertainties, for all of my new questions, I am convinced that these words will not leave me.
Lucy
