The real work continues after the COP26 summit

Video: Wet’suwet’en land defenders have been criminalized for defending their territory against a fracked gas pipeline being built on their lands without consent. The application form to come to camp to support this struggle is here.

The United Nations COP26 climate summit concluded in Glasgow, Scotland on November 13. This is the full text of the Glasgow Climate Pact reached at those talks.

Greta Thunberg has tweeted: “The #COP26 is over. Here’s a brief summary: Blah, blah, blah. But the real work continues outside these halls. And we will never give up, ever.”

None of the 97 points in the pact mention land and environmental rights defenders, despite the murder of more than 1,005 defenders since COP21 in 2015.

In the lead-up to COP26, Fridays for Future made six demands of the governments preparing for the COP26 summit.

One of those demands was: “Stop the violence and criminalization against indigenous peoples, small farmers, small fisherfolk, and other environmental and land defenders. Support the work they do. Respect and listen to our defenders.”

The next Conference of Parties summit, COP27, will take place in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt on November 7-18, 2022.

COP28 will take place in 2023 in the United Arab Emirates.

Given the numbers documented by Global Witness over the years, hundreds more land and environmental rights defenders will be killed in between these summits.

Peace Brigades International continues to provide physical and political accompaniment to these frontline defenders in countries where they are most targeted.

“COP26 is a performance, it’s an illusion constructed to salvage capitalist economies rooted in resource extraction and colonialism. …Every day Indigenous people are criminalized, incarcerated, murdered, and disappeared because of industries propelling climate change. …We can’t get too comfortable at COP26, we need to be fighting for COP26 to be obsolete.“ – Tla’amin land defender Ta’Kaiya Blaney

Takaronto-based World Beyond War organizer Rachel Small has just returned from Wet’suwet’en territory. Her video report can be seen here.