In the absence of world leaders, and with the UNFCCC climate conference at COP26 in Glasgow postponed until November 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, student climate activists decided to press ahead and hold their own online MOCK COP, which took place between 19th November and 1st December 2020. The full Declaration and Treaty can be read here.
It involved 330 young people from 140 countries – the majority of all of the signatories to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. At the conclusion of this they presented their own demands in the form of a Declaration and Treaty, which they invited world leaders to endorse, presenting it to the UK’s High Level Champion for COP26, Nigel Topping at the closing ceremony. The demands covered climate education, climate justice, climate resilient livelihoods, health and wellbeing and Nationally Determined Contributions.
COP26andbeyond was proud to be part of the legal team that put this Declaration and Treaty together from the MOCK COP delegates demands that they had voted on, along with Julia Davies of WeHavethePower, Ellie Gold of ClientEarth and Nina Hamasaki.
The MOCK COP was featured on many news outlets, including this film clip from Channel 4 News, which summarises the organisers’ aims, and gives a flavour of the climate change impacts directly affecting some of the delegates’ countries, from submerged islands in the Solomon Islands to 21 cyclones in one year in the Philippines:
At COP26andbeyond we ran a fringe event at the MOCK COP, on Using the Law to Fix the Climate, outlining some of the ways to become involved in making laws, and the importance of climate laws being properly implemented and enforced. This featured contributions from Barry McLaughlin, Ireland Climate Ambassador, Todd Murray from the Welsh Youth Parliament, Chiara Ferro from the Parliamentary Assembly for the Mediterranean, Giulia Longo from IARI in Italy and Manal Bidar from the Gouvernement Parallele des Jeunes in Morocco, and contributions from MOCK COP delegates in Scotland, France, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, Canada, India, Madagascar and Togo.
William Wilson of COP26andbeyond commented:
“It has been a privilege to work with such a committed and inspiring group of young people. I hope they will be fired up to continue this important work by encouraging their own countries to keep going to make the Paris Agreement commitment a reality.”