After last night’s BBC headline about human rights organisations sending an open letter questioning the continued existence of, and corruption of, COP, it looked this morning as though it had actually collapsed!

Well, Baku is known as “the windy city”, and this fencing was quickly sorted. The talks, though, were not…

Various talks had stalled while backroom negotiators tried to push back on language that is there to protect human rights and women. On finance, the global north were pushing for 100 billion a year while the global south demand 1.3 trillion. “Article 6” relates to emissions trading and is a false solution to decarbonisation since apparent savings to emissions are counted twice over; those that sell the offsets count them, and also those that buy them count them again.

The first week of COP talks are really meant to set up the agenda for week two and this should have completed last night but by 6pm yesterday parties had requested extensions; in COP, everything can only be agreed by consensus so if everyone does not agree then there is nothing achieved.

We have continued to send various requests through to our UK negotiators and spoken to some in person but discovered today that some reps actually have their government ministers on whatsapp (we have a way to go then!!)

Joy, our rep who coordinates our involvement in cross- constituency actions (ie in partnership with women’s groups, global south campaign groups, indigenous nations, human rights organisations and more), informed us at our meeting that this year there would NOT be the usual march, due to various restrictions. And we were being told we could only hum not shout or sing!!!

This is in addition to the restrictions already given earlier in the week, that countries cannot be named in actions, and country flags cannot be carried.

Meanwhile, Tony and I went to take a look at the Green Zone which is usually a kind of civic space, open to the public, with activities, some for children, and stalls of voluntary organisations (in Glasgow, this was pretty vibrant!). This year we quickly became aware we had entered the Greenwashing Zone.

Well as long as we end flaring who cares about gas?

I always knew they’d privatise air next!!!

This guy might save us though?

I did enjoy being able to vote on a wall of pegs to select my favourite sustainable development goal- obviously I picked education!!!

Worryingly lots didn’t…

When we found the activity to put a pebble in the most important solution, which meant choosing between nature, carbon reduction and reducing waste, we rebelled and both put pebbles in all three…which made a noise, causing security to come rushing over…

So we treated ourselves to a coffee, but after asking for milk, I got ONLY milk.

Strange really, as this came after viewing the urban planning for the “white city” of Baku- which used to be known as the “black city” thanks to the oil slick and pollution.

Plenty of deals still going on though…

Back at the slightly less surreal Blue Zone, I attended a meeting about planning for decent jobs in the energy sector and the International Energy Agency set out their goals around including workers in plans for decent green jobs. The moderator asked the union reps present whether this was their experience on the ground. In a nutshell the answer was no from both speakers present representing the Netherlands and Kenya.

Lina, our youth union rep, also highlighted the problem of young people only nowadays being offered jobs in insecure work without proper contracts and conditions.

With hope at the COP diminishing, it’s always good to have a protest, but, as we saw earlier, we had been silenced. By lunchtime our reps had managed to get a big plenary venue for a loud rally before the silent “human chain” event. We were all kitted out with placards and T-shirts and assembled in the “Caspian Hall” and heard from a Palestinian, a worker from South Asia, reps from other groups and an indigenous woman who reminded us that “we do not hear from our brains; people think you do and this is a mistake. The reason we do not think like the people in the negotiation halls is because we remember we are nature. We do not hear with our brains or our ears; we hear with the spirit inside us and we know we are part of nature, we have a stirring deep inside. And our spirits of our ancestors are here today and they are proud of what we are doing; we are doing the right thing!”

So we sang, and shouted, and danced and then we kicked the polluters out by stamping on the ground…and then security came to stop us stamping.

And the time came to file out of the hall to the biggest area of the COP Blue Zone, AREA D, where all the ministers and negotiators meet. And we hummed and clicked fingers and then sat and stood in quiet dignity with our banners and signs and were surrounded, for a whole hour, by TV cameras, people with their phones, badged people in suits, and we were not ignored because every single person had to walk past a human chain of climate activists that formed a double row all the way around the huge building.

And do you know what? I think maybe our ancestors would be proud, because it was not even just us. Protests took place in many places today. This reached us from Kathmandu!

All over the world people are rising up, whether they know it’s because of climate change or not. But it is usually for this reason: COP may or may not be collapsing, but society is and nature is and the climate is. And we know another world is possible. And maybe we don’t get there just by talking…

Join a union! Because we are stronger when we act together!