Counter-event to climate summit: environmentalists launch »Tribunal of the Peoples«

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Climate protests in Glasgow: Tribunal against climate criminals

Photo: Vuk Valcic / imago images / ZUMA Wire

After two large demonstrations with tens of thousands of demonstrators, climate protection activists have started a counter-summit to the UN conference in Glasgow.

The four-day “People's Summit” started with a “Tribunal of the Peoples”, which wants to sit in court on the climate policy of most states and the United Nations.

Wrong solutions and goals in the fight against global warming are already endangering the health and home of millions of people, it said.

Like the protests on the days before, the aim of the counter-summit is to increase the pressure on the negotiating teams of the 200 or so states represented in Glasgow.

Core demands are radical climate protection, comprehensive debt relief for all developing countries and reparation payments from industrialized countries.

Compensation for industrialized countries

The COP26 Coalition, an alliance of organizations and campaigns that work for more climate protection, wrote: "We need climate protection that works for everyone, not just for the people with the most money in their pockets."

In the second and last week of the mammoth meeting with almost 30,000 delegates, the topic of money will be on the agenda from next Monday.

Poor states, which are already suffering from droughts, floods and rising sea levels, insist on compensation from rich industrialized countries.

Greenpeace boss Jennifer Morgan put the financial needs of the less developed nations at several trillion dollars.

The goal of the COP26 climate conference is to limit global warming to a tolerable level of a maximum of 1.5 degrees.

The planet has already heated up by a good 1.1 degrees, Germany even by 1.6 degrees.

rai / dpa