Wednesday, November 16, 2022

Welcome to COP27. Thank You for Not Protesting | WIRED

INÉS YÁBAR, A 26-year-old climate activist from Peru, was not sure if she wanted to go to COP27. In prior years, she had been excited for the UN climate meeting—to have two weeks to talk about the health of the planet, and only the health of the planet, with the most powerful people in the world. Three years ago, she first attended the conference as a youth negotiator, sitting in closed-door meetings where she was often the only person under 30. At the next, she chased down delegates and gave them personalized letters from young people who, for reasons of money or visas or credentials, could not attend. Then she would join the hundreds of thousands of people taking part in rollicking weekend protests outside the conference venue in Glasgow, Scotland. Badge-wearing activists from within the conference mingled with anarchists and instigators on the outside, hoping to grab the attention of the cameras—and, hopefully, the negotiators. "It was a reminder to everyone on the inside—myself included—that we had to do more," she says.

But Yábar was no longer entirely sure she believed in the concept of COP. There was the hypocrisy, the greenwashing, the inaction—a lot of, as Greta Thunberg put it, "blah, blah, blah..." 

https://www.wired.com/story/cop27-protest-restrictions/

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