Activists urge world leaders to make immediate pollution cuts for a livable climate

One by one, what looked like world leaders splashed their way to a podium in Glasgow, Scotland recently. The stage they stood on was sinking.

In reality, these were activists in rubber boots and oversized face masks of world leaders, from Joe Biden to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Activists, lobbyists, and local officials have flocked to Glasgow, as real world leaders are also gathered there to negotiate the planet’s future. Among the crowd was Seattle climate activist Alec Connon, who appeared on stage as Australian prime minister and coal booster Scott Morrison.

The activists’ stage was a half-submerged barge in Glasgow’s Forth and Clyde Canal. The bit of political theater aimed at echoing the world’s rising seas and the sinking chances of avoiding climate catastrophe with each year that passes without major reductions in the fossil-fuel pollution that is heating the atmosphere.

“Time is running out to address the climate crisis,” Connon said after the semiaquatic skit.

Scientists and activists have been urging leaders to make deep, immediate cuts in pollution to keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“Failure to do that would be a death sentence for millions of people and countless species around the world,” Connon said.

The world’s emissions of climate-altering pollution from fossil fuels and cement production have increased by 50% since world leaders started negotiating to lower it back in 1995.

“It’s become clear after 26 years of negotiations like this that world leaders simply cannot be relied upon to do the right thing and ensure that we are keeping fossil fuels in the ground,” Connon said.

In August 2021, with global temperatures already 1.2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that avoiding catastrophic increases in global temperatures would require "immediate, rapid and large-scale" reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres called the report “a code red for humanity,” with “the viability of our societies” on the line.

“This report must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet,” Guterres said in a press release.

Many governments and businesses have pledged to stop polluting by mid-century. Shorter-term actions have been harder to come by.

Glasgow attendees from Washington state include Gov. Jay Inslee, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, and Quinault Nation vice president and National Congress of American Indians president Fawn Sharp.

While in Glasgow, Durkan announced a new requirement for large buildings to stop using fossil fuels starting in 2026. Inslee announced that the state government’s 5,000 vehicles would be replaced by zero-emission vehicles over the next 14 to 19 years.

Sharp, the first tribal leader to be part of a U.S. delegation at global climate talks, could not be reached for comment.

"Indigenous communities globally have one thing in common: We are resilient survivors, and we will help lead the world through this challenge to a brighter, more just, and more sustainable future," Sharp said in a press release before the global climate summit.