The COP26 Coalition Galway will hold a rally for climate justice at the Spanish Arch on Saturday November 6 at 12 noon.
The rally is in response to the COP26 summit taking place in Glasgow in November and will demand “urgent and immediate action” from governments internationally to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises. It will be among the hundreds of protests held across the world on November 6 in response to the call for large-scale global mobilisations for climate action issued by the COP26 coalition.
.
Speakers at the Galway rally will include Caroline Stanley (Friends of Merlin Woods ), Marian Spelman (Galway Trades Council ), Derrick Hambleton (An Taisce ), Zerhanah Walsh (People Before Profit ), Sinéad Brady (Social Democrats ), Andrew Ó Baoill (Labour Party ), and others.
The core demands of COP26 Coalition Ireland are investment in green jobs and a just transition for workers; free, green, and frequent public transport; a moratorium on building data centres; a ban on investment in new fossil fuel infrastructure, including LNG terminals; and sustainable agriculture and a just transition for small farmers.
.
"The demands put forward by COP26 Coalition Ireland will be crucial internationally in limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 °c,” said a spokesperson for the COP26 Coalition Galway. “Anything above this means the climate crisis will be not only disastrous, but catastrophic. Current government and corporation targets of ‘Net Zero’ by 2050 do not put us anywhere on track to achieve this, as they involve continued pollution alongside inadequate ‘carbon offsets’. We need to achieve ‘Real Zero’ by rapidly reducing current emissions, prohibiting new fossil fuel investments and infrastructure, and saying no to carbon markets and risky unproven technologies that allow countries and corporations to continue polluting."
