“We and civil society organisations will be championing the voices of representatives from the Global South, but it remains to be seen whether we actually see this shift that we’ve been pushing for for such a long time at this Cop.”

The Cop26 summit has finally kicked off in Glasgow, seeing activists and civil society groups descend on the city in a bid to hold world leaders to their words on climate action and to push them further to guarantee measures that adequately respond to the scale of the climate crisis.

Although still dominated by Labour and the SNP, Glasgow itself returned seven green councillors to city council in 2017. The devolved government at Holyrood also now relies on the support of the Scottish Green Party, as the SNP fell short of an absolute majority in elections held this May.

But this has not put a final stop to major new fossil fuel ventures in Scotland, with the prospective Cambo oilfield scheme near Shetland casting a shadow over proceedings this month. The Green Party is opposed to the project, but its future still remains undecided.

LFF spoke to Councillor Jon Molyneux – who was one of the seven candidates elected in 2017 – about his formation’s experiences of the past four years in city hall, questions of participation and access to this year’s summit and what tangible gains the environmental movement might be able to take away from this year’s summit.

The representative for the Pollokshields area in the southside of Glasgow discussed access issues raised by this year’s summit both locally and internationally.

Cllr Molyneux noted, firstly, some encouraging signs he has seen in terms of engagement with representatives at the summit from areas of the world’s economic periphery who are disproportionately at the sharp end of manmade climate change and ecosystem collapse.

He said: “I was pleased that the First Minister [Nicola Sturgeon] met with Minga Indigena guests at the weekend in my ward.

“I think the more world leaders give that recognition, the more quickly we can make progress on this and see these areas of the world occupy the centre of the debate, which hasn’t happened at all in the past. But the traditional global power dynamics are still holding sway, as we’ve seen even with the number of world leaders arriving by private jets to the summit.

“We and civil society organisations will be championing the voices of representatives from the Global South, but it remains to be seen whether we actually see this shift that we’ve been pushing for for such a long time at this Cop.”

Locally, residents have also been outraged in recent days by the news that a free city-wide, integrated public transport ‘smartcard’ would be rolled out exclusively for Cop26 delegates over their upcoming fortnight in the city.

“I can certainly understand why it’s mystifying for people,” he said.

“Integrated ticketing is something that campaigns like ‘Get Glasgow Moving’ have been pushing for for a long, long time. And there have been manifesto commitments around this from the SNP both locally and nationally. It’s not been introduced yet, it’s not happened.

“I don’t know the details around why that’s not been something that’s been achievable but it’s apparently achievable for Cop26. But I think everyone accepts we need to vastly improve patronage of public transport, particularly buses in Glasgow, if we’re going to get people out of cars and make it equitable for everyone.

“Cheaper fares are the number one priority. The Greens in government have secured free bus travel for under-22s. We’d like to extend that further – we’ve got a long-term policy goal of free public transport for all, at the point of need.

“But also getting integration not just in terms of ticketing but services as well. That’s massively important and it’s incredibly frustrating that it hasn’t happened yet, but certain aspects of it become instantly possible for a short time when Cop delegates are in town.”

On the increasing institutional influence the Greens are wielding in Scotland, he says: “The co-operation agreement [at Holyrood] is very wide-ranging – it’s not just one or two narrow priorities. It’s got a really broad sweep of policies in there, from tenants’ rights through to zero carbon buildings. But obviously it’s early days in terms of the arrangements there.

“At the local level, we don’t have any form of coalition at all – the SNP has a minority. But we’ve pushed the traditional parties into abandoning a long-running road scheme, for instance, that would’ve driven a four-lane flyover through a public park.

“In 2018, the SNP voted against a Green and Labour amendment to tear up its economic strategy and replace it with a plan for a Green New Deal, a Just Transition and to make Glasgow a carbon neutral city by 2030. Two weeks ago, they brought a paper to council pledging to deliver a carbon neutral city by 2030 and placing a Just Transition at its heart.”

“So, in a short time, we’ve been able to move the SNP on a number of really key issues. This has happened not just because of what we’ve done in council chambers, but because of the social movements that the Greens form part of changing the agenda to this extent. But of course it still needs to be fully delivered and that’s what we’ll be holding the SNP to.”

So what would make Cop26 a success, in his eyes?

“I think what I’d like is not likely to be achieved. I think, in terms of what’s realistic or what could be achieved, fundamentally keeping the Paris goals still in play. It’s depressing to say that a positive outcome is keeping us in line with a previous agreement rather than having to backtrack from it. But, on the basis of what’s on the table, that would be a positive outcome at this point.

“But we do need to look much, much further obviously. We need to fundamentally look at how the economic system we have is causing this and is actively preventing the progress we need to see, how it’s keeping the voices of those on the frontline of the crisis locked out. We do need to see that fundamental shift.

“It’s going to happen and the Greens and others will do their utmost to make it happen. Sadly, the UK government doesn’t fill you with much confidence in terms of their ability to negotiate this. But we have to hope that people making themselves heard will up the ante and hopefully we can get something that we can move forward from Glasgow with.

“There’s been amazing energy with climate activism in recent years. Particularly, the Fridays for Future groups and Climate Justice activism we’ve seen are hugely energising. My generation are certainly energised by seeing what they are capable of doing. We certainly hope that having Cop26 in Glasgow will keep that energy going and that there will be an outcome that makes people feel that energy is worthwhile.

“Even the best outcome at Cop isn’t going to get us everything we need. So we need to keep up the momentum and keep bringing as many people as we can into this movement – because it affects us all and it’s more important than any one particular worldview or set of values. That’s what we’ve got to keep going with.”

Tommy Greene is a freelance journalist

Comments are closed.