Scientists have become increasingly dismayed and frustrated with the annual global Conference of the Parties (COP) climate talks. This past fall, Scientist Rebellion staged a series of globally coordinated campaigns related to the 28th COP meeting in Dubai.
Over 37 Ugandan scientist activists blocked roads in front of fossil fuel tanks. Scientists across South America, France, and Nigeria offered alternative COP meetings. In Barcelona, scientists blocked and painted in black the EU offices there. Activists including scientists staged a die-in in Denmark. In Mexico scientists marched from a monument of Gandhi to the UN office, pasting scientific papers along the way to highlight the failures of COP.
Scientists protested in front of the Ministry of Energy and Mines in Quito, Ecuador. In Berlin, scientists pasted scientific papers and poured fake blood on a courthouse to protest criminalization of climate activists. In Bern, Switzerland, scientists slow marched to the parliament to call out their representative to COP, an oil lobbyist turned environment minister.
Here in North America, scientists joined local activists in Boston for a protest at the Massachusetts State House on Nov 30, the first day of the COP 28 meeting. That same day, scientists joined XR PDX and other groups to protest COP 28 and testify against the fossil-fuel-centric Portland Metro Transit Plan.
In San Francisco, scientists asked #HowMuchMore at the APEC meeting, and later urged fellow scientists attending the American Geophysical Union meeting there to divest from fossil fuel company support and use their voices as scientists to lead the world toward climate justice.
Almost 2,000 scientists and allies signed an open letter to you, the public, calling on all of us to engage in collective climate action. We have to be the leaders we need.
