Pilgrims Procession

COP26: Pilgrims march on Glasgow to call for justice for world's climate-hit communities.

The first in a series of demonstrations and protests timed to coincide with the international climate talks taking place in Glasgow.
The Pilgrims Procession is being considered the “opening ceremony” in a programme of non-violent direct actions being planned in the city and in locations across the UK and worldwide during the two-week duration of the United Nations summit COP26.

The march, which officially begins at McLennan Arch on Glasgow Green, will include representatives from a number of different local and international faith and activist groups as well as artists and members of the public.
The demonstrators are on a mission to raise awareness of the climate crisis and are demanding that COP26 negotiators agree a fair deal for communities in the Global South who are suffering the most devastating impacts of environmental breakdown.

Many of the individuals and groups taking part in the protest have already marched many miles to reach Glasgow today.
Groups involved include XR Faith Bridge, which has been leading the Camino to COP walk from from London and Bristol to Glasgow, Marcha Glasgow, the Ecumenical Pilgrimage for Climate Justice, coming from Poland, Sweden and Germany, the Pilgrimage for COP26, which set of from Dunbar in East Lothian, and the Young Christian Climate Network.

Glasgow-based collaborative artists Zoe Walker and Neil Bromwich will also be parading a 30m-long sculptural work, the ‘Serpent of Capitalism’, which has been especially created for the conference.
An environmental art installation of flags created by Kinetika artistic director Ali Pretty, titled Beach of Dreams, will also be on show.

XR Scotland’s theatrical ‘Blue Rebels’ will form a guard of honour for the pilgrims.

Alex Cochrane, of XR Glasgow, said: “Those on the frontline of the climate crisis are dying and suffering right now.


“COP26 must end a growing crime against humanity by wealthy governments where the Global South are sacrificed to bear the brunt of the Global North’s affluent, carbon-intensive lifestyles.

“We welcome the pilgrims of faith – and no faith – who are walking to COP26 to demand governments also walk the walk for the Global South.”

The Camino to COP and Pilgrimage for COP26 are inspired both by the faith tradition of pilgrimage and historic justice marches of the past, such as the Jarrow March in the UK and the Salt March in India.

Physicist and XR pilgrim Yaz Ashmawi added: “Countries around the world are already suffering the consequences of our historic emissions in the west, and small island states like the Maldives will be submerged by rising seas if no immediate action is taken on the climate.


“As people of faith we have a spiritual duty of care to those who are less fortunate than us, so we have been using this walk to raise money for activists in financially disadvantaged countries that are already impacted, to empower them to join