As delegates from across the world converge on Glasgow for COP26, a city which is home to thousands of people who have sought sanctuary here, it is vital that the needs and voices of displaced people and indigenous communities who are most impacted by climate change are heard.
During the Global Day of Action march, I was honoured to join the migrant justice bloc, organised by MORE (Migrants Organising for Rights and Empowerment). This powerful, migrant-led, grassroots community group has been working for the past 18 months with the COP26 Coalition to ensure that migrant and refugee voices are not ignored during climate justice negotiations and protest.
The power emanating from this bloc, as communities came together to stand for systemic change, was enormous. Despite the rain, wind and cold, we sang, chanted and yelled for all of Glasgow to hear for hours as we marched from Kelvingrove Park to Glasgow Green.
MORE’s founder Yvonne Blake spoke at the rally before and after the march, raising awareness of the impact of climate change on the Global South, on displaced communities, and on her community here in Glasgow.
Speaking on the policies impacting the lives of refugees, she said: “Here in Britain, they’re treated as criminals. They are treated as terrorists, they have nowhere to live, they have no access to employment, they have no access to education. Some people are forced to survive on less than £6 a day.”
Read more from Yvonne in her interview for Black History Month with the COP26 Coalition: “The climate crisis is about global inequality. It is about land grabbing, the extraction of natural and human resources – especially those belonging to the global South – and the deliberate destruction of what cannot be extracted. Consequently, climate change can only and ought only to be viewed through the lens of injustice. This is an urgent humanitarian ecological crisis, and we must finally address is with a social and reparative justice focus.”
I left Glasgow Green on Saturday feeling somewhat more hopeful. Even if negotiations behind closed doors at the SEC fail this week, over 100,000 people marched in the rain through Glasgow to raise their voices for climate justice, migrant justice, indigenous justice, systemic change, community power and solidarity.
The people, united, will never be defeated.
