Massive Police Presence at “Most Exclusionary COP Ever”

A major feature throughout the COP26 UN Climate Summit is to underscore that “leaders rule” and the people have no say and are ruled. This is enforced by a massive police presence at COP26, which is said to be the largest ever organized to enforce the overall exclusion of those most affected by climate change.

The UK government will reportedly spend as much as £250 million on policing at the summit, which is said to be the largest ever deployment of police in the UK, bigger than that of the June 2021 G7 Summit in Cornwall or the 2012 London Olympics. For three weeks, roughly 10,000 police officers from across the UK will be on duty every day in Glasgow, including 7,000 from outside Scotland. Armed officers and search dogs will patrol the city’s underground and overground rail networks for the duration of the summit. In addition, “The army has been brought in to assist with security, while UN troops will be on duty inside the main conference area,” The Times reported. The costs also include the high steel fence surrounding the Scottish Event Campus (SEC) where the official proceedings are taking place. The fence is said to be required to provide “a buffer against any potential terrorist attack.” It is also reported that Scottish police are using “an anti-terrorist traffic regulation order to close roads and paths around the SEC.”

Police officers have been deployed to outnumber those taking part in actions over the past week, activists report.

All of it sends a clear message that the working people and especially the youth who have been fighting to put climate change on the agenda are to be considered a threat and criminalized, while those responsible for the plunder and unchecked despoiling of Mother Earth to enrich themselves are not to be held to account.

This article was published in:

Renewal Update No. 59, November 6, 2021

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Massive Police Presence at “Most Exclusionary COP Ever”