“Promises have been made but young people will only be satisfied when they see the actions, when we return home after COP26”, said Adelaïde Charlier on Saturday, November 6 on franceinfo, from the procession of the demonstration for the World Day of Action for Climate Inaction, on the sidelines of the COP26 in Glasgow. “Thanks to this first week, countries will be forced to tell themselves that they must go further and change the way they live at home”, added the co-founder of the citizen climate movement Youth for Climate.
franceinfo: Greta Thunberg, who initiated your movement, says that COP26 is a failure, a “celebration of blaba”, a “greenwashing festival”. So, why protest?
Adelaide Charlier: You know, we’ve heard a lot of speeches this first week. Now, we want to make sure that the various promises, those of COP26 but also those of COP21 (the Paris agreement, aimed at limiting global warming between 1.5 ° and 2 ° C), 6 years ago , are actually followed by actions. This is not the case at the moment. We have reached a global warming of 2.7 degrees! The promise of Paris is not kept. Today, we are in the streets to ask that this promise be kept at the COP26, but also, so that concrete actions are proposed once back in our countries.
What do you take away from the first week of COP26?
There are nevertheless actions in the right direction. After that, I expect, for example, from my country, Belgium, an alignment with more ambitious countries. Belgium gave a nice speech saying that we were one of the leaders of the world. In the meantime, we are not one of those United Nations leaders who want to have more ambition and who push for us to go further. Some do better than others but a report from different scientists, which I looked at a few days ago, explains that none of the countries in the world today are in line with the Paris agreement.
The Paris agreement is 6 years old, we are still in discussions here at COP26. Isn’t that a little disheartening for you?
It can be very disheartening, but I remain hopeful when I see the mobilization of citizens. More and more citizens are starting to find alternatives, ways to live differently to respect the world in which we live. I have a lot of hope for the citizens and especially the massive mobilizations. I see real changes around me, but it’s not because of political commitments, it’s thanks to citizens’ commitments. So today, I am convinced that the movement we have launched allows us to put pressure on politicians, but above all it allows citizens to get involved in initiating change, already on our side. And we hope that the politicians will follow.