John Muir Trust and the COP26 Coalition

Getting behind the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, scheduled to be held in Glasgow.

The John Muir Trust seeks to join with like-minded individuals and organisations as part of a collective civil society effort to coordinate voices, events and actions in the run-up to the UN climate change summit, COP26, to be held in Glasgow this November.

Uniting a diverse membership which includes trade unions, climate groups, environment NGOs, faith groups, student and youth groups, migrant and racial justice networks - the COP26 Coalition calls for the summit to be a moment for real change.

It aims to use the year leading up to COP26 to strengthen the Scottish, UK and International climate justice movement for system change, and to enable civil society to use the COP as leverage to make gains at a domestic level.

“By joining the Coalition, we want to show publicly that we align with a diverse cross-section of society who recognise the climate emergency,” said Toby Clark, of the John Muir Trust. “We have a global outlook as well as a community, regional and UK presence and we believe in the importance of joining with others to highlight the significance of COP26 for achieving a united response to the climate emergency.”

As well as raising awareness of the multiple crises we’re witnessing (of health, inequality, politics of hate and cultural division, climate breakdown, ecological destruction, poverty and mass migration), the Coalition also aims to highlight the pace and scale of change required to address the injustice which climate change is already causing around the world.

“We want to play a central part in the discussion in a year when people in Scotland, as well as globally, will be following the lead up to and progress made during COP26,” said Toby.

• The COP26 Coalition is a civil society coalition of groups and individuals from a range of constituencies across the UK, including trade unions, direct action networks, climate justice groups, environment and development NGOs, faith groups, students and youth, migrant and racial justice networks.

Photo of Scot's pine by Mark Hamblin/2020Vision