A large rainbow lit up the sky in Glasgow on Saturday (November 6) as thousands of protesters demanded bolder global action to address environmental issues. The Scottish city hosted COP26 climate summit a few days ago. Though pledges were made by global leaders to reduce carbon emissions, experts say that much more was needed to have been done.

Demonstrators began gathering on Saturday morning in a park near the COP26 summit venue, chanting: “Our world is under attack, stand up fight back!” 

“I think a lot of politicians are scared of the power of this movement,” said a 22-year-old Norwegian protester who gave her name as Jenny.

Delegates from nearly 200 countries are in Glasgow to hammer out how to meet the Paris Agreement goals of limiting temperature rises to between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius.

At the halfway stage of the COP26 negotiations, some countries have upgraded their existing pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while there have been separate deals on phasing out coal, ending foreign fossil fuel funding, and slashing methane.

The promises followed a pre-COP26 estimate from the UN that said national climate plans, when brought together, put Earth on course to warm 2.7C this century.

With just 1.1C of warming so far, communities across the world are already facing ever more intense fire and drought, displacement and economic ruin wrought by global heating.

And a major assessment last week showed global CO2 emissions were set to rebound in 2021 to pre-pandemic levels.

Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg said the summit had gone nowhere near far enough in a speech at Friday’s youth march in Glasgow, where she labelled the conference “a failure”.

(With inputs from agencies)