Climate activists have been causing a stir at COP26 by campaigning for more extreme action to be taken by world leaders – and one particularly protest seemed to really riled up the summit’s organisers on Tuesday.
A campaign run by the Gastivists Network – a group which pushes back against the use of fossil fuels – saw activists project key phrases onto the side of COP26′s main venue in Glasgow such as ‘Ban Fracking Now’ and ‘Net 0 Is Not 0’.
According to Tommy Vickerstaff, who was part of the campaign group, the aim was to “call out greenwashing and demand that fossil fuels are left in the ground”.
When the UN summit’s organisers found out about this, they tried to respond by projecting “different patterns etc over the projections to try and disrupt them”.
Vickerstaff added: “Realising that wasn’t deterring us, they animated the background and that didn’t work either...
“Which lead to the moment that #Cop26 decided to write the words ‘GO AWAY’ over our projections, and more specifically, over their own venue!”
Footage shared by Vickerstaff shows the message appearing repeatedly over Gastivists’ own projections.
Burning fossil fuels is one of the worst activities for the environment because it produces such a huge amount of CO2 emissions.
Reducing the consumption of coal, crude oil and natural gas has been a major talking point during COP26 negotiations.
Many believe the reluctant pledges from certain countries do not go far enough to actually make a difference, especially as most nations still back fossil fuel companies.
These protests are just the latest to have made an impact at the UN summit.
Renowned environmentalist Greta Thunberg condemned the conference as just a “greenwashing” festival, and spoke out against the “blah blah blah” promises the world leaders make.
She ended up chanting, “you can shove your climate crisis up your arse” outside the summit.
Other youth activists took on the chancellor Rishi Sunak over climate finance and asked why he was supposedly giving tax breaks to fossil fuel companies – he then reportedly banned the protesters from his speech to COP26.
