What else are you gonna do on a Saturday in December? Go on, come to the COP!
Climate conference will be a place to share ideas and collectively hammer out a path to a greener future
Friday, 24th November 2023 — By Anna Lamche
Mariana Mazzucato
WORLD leaders are preparing to jet off to Dubai for the COP28 climate conference at the end of this month.
There they will meet to discuss the environmental crisis. In the exhibition halls fossil fuel lobbyists will mingle with decision-makers, exchanging business cards. Protesters will be kept at a safe distance from the secure zone.
In hundreds of feeder sessions, delegates will debate additions and amendments to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) treaty, moving at glacial pace towards a plenary session in which the final wording of proposed climate measures will inevitably be weakened or watered down.
Kwajo Tweneboa
The conclusions of the conference will not be binding. When the jamboree is over, leaders will return home to preside over the following year in which critics will argue, again, that little or nothing has changed.
For those of us watching proceedings from afar, climate diplomacy seems to move at a maddeningly slow pace given the scale of the crisis.
But if there is little to inspire hope in Dubai, it is worth looking closer to home for courage.
That is why we are holding our own “London COP” at the London Irish Centre in Camden Square on Saturday December 9. This is a place where Londoners can come together to share ideas and collectively hammer out a path to a greener future.
Anna Minton
We will hear from a wide range of thinkers, including the economist Mariana Mazzucato, the academic and journalist Anna Minton, social justice campaigner Kwajo Tweneboa, and Just Stop Oil founder Roger Hallam – among many others.
You can also support your local artist-makers at our Christmas fair, where independent local traders will be selling everything from ceramics, homeware, illustration, art & design, clothing and small-batch cosmetics. Explore the work of some of the very best designers, artists and makers in the city.
We have been able to keep the talks free and open to all, thanks to help from our sponsors at ASLEF, JEM, Wesley Hotel, Argent, and the Fitzrovia Partnership.
