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October 26, 2021
Anything you need to know
A staggering number of people are coming to Glasgow for the crucial climate talks. The number of official delegates alone is estimated at 25,000 and there’s an even greater number of lobbyists, activists, media and general camp followers. And without Covid, travel restrictions and the inevitable damp and cool November weather, those numbers would be even higher. While the eyes of the world will be trained on the world’s leaders in the hope that they can agree the necessary actions, there’s a lot more going on besides. For everything you ever wanted to know about COP (but were afraid to ask)
Looking for space for meetings and events?
If you are looking for space to meet or for an event you may still find something through our spaces for change network of local community and faith venues in Glasgow. We have 25 venues who are looking forward to welcoming civil society groups and campaigners during COP26
Meet Us: Space for socialising, rest – and charging devices!
At Adelaide Place, 209 Bath Street more info
- Welcome Ceilidh – Saturday 30th October 7-10pm
- The Climate Fringe cafes – 830am-430pm daily – a drop-in location for hotdesking, charging phones and laptops, informal meetings and getting advice and orientation on what is going on in the city.
- The Open Mic Ceilidhs – 7-930pm daily: come and take part, bring your songs, stories, poetry and music
Note: From 7-10 November Adelaide Place will be one of the People’s Summit venues (no cafes and open mic ceilidhs on those days)
Please note our covid guidance. Make sure you lateral flow before you go!
Helping you Orientate Yourself in Glasgow
Our COP26 map highlights key places
- The Locations of the bookable local venues on our spaces for change network
- All the hubs for civil society across Glasgow where things will be happening over the two weeks
- Our COP26 Local Workspaces – a network of Cafés with extra charging points ready to welcome activists and campaigners to Glasgow
- The Climate Justice exhibition trail – showing art sent to us from global south countries to help raise their voices at COP26 see photos here.
Finding you places to eat, drink and relax
Glasgow is packed full of community run and sustainable places to eat and drink. This map has been crowdsourced by people in Glasgow to show their favourite places – so if you’re looking for an oatmilk flatwhite or the best curry in Glasgow while you are here, check the map!
Also showing bike shops, community gardens and parks.
Finding out What On Earth is Going on …
There are hundreds of events going on in Glasgow during COP26. The Climate Fringe lists civil-society events by theme and type so you can filter the ones you want and also has specific lists for online events, arts and culture, Blue Zone events, and Live events in Glasgow. Each day we will be doing our ‘pick of the day’ for the Blue Zone, events outside COP and what’s on in Arts and Culture and recommended places to socialise.
What if we can’t come to Glasgow?
We realise that so many people can’t come to Glasgow due to travel restrictions, covid, visas or expense and so we are gathering as many live streams as we can along with a specific programme we are creating so people can easily find content that suits them to stream. Our small grants have enabled communities to set up and run their own ‘COP in the Community’ events
Tune into Climate Fringe TV here.
Arts, Culture and Artivism
We have a small hub for artists and artivists during COP to create and rehearse. And we have a list of resources and a small emergency fund for materials to support artists making a difference at COP
- Get in touch if you would like to have an arts space during COP26
- View our specially commissioned interactive work by artist and activist Aidan Moesby, which is online and also live at the Climate Fringe cafe during COP. Sagacity interacts with people tweeting about COP to take the emotional temperature of Glasgow.
- Get out and about and see our collaboration with Climate Change Creative in posters around the city – locations on the map here:
- See art and banners sent from round the world to us from civil society groups who are unable to come to glasgow due to vivid, visas and expense – locations on the map here:
Accommodation:
Our COP26 Homestay Network is still open for new hosts! We now have over 1000 hosts but we anticipate people will still be looking for accommodation up to the middle of the first week of COP26 so please do sign up – If you still need accomodation please do look for a host on the website!
How to stay in touch:
- Sign up to our e-bulletins,
- We’ve got three digests: Blue Zone, Fringe and Arts and Culture which will be live on the Climate Fringe Blog at 4pm each day for the next day
- The Climatefringe.org has Civil Society events happening live in Glasgow, online and also around the world. Click on our filtered webpages to find out what’s on in the areas you are interested in: eg Blue Zone, Civil Society Fringe events, Online events, Arts and Culture
- We are on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram tag us!
- Daily live updates on what’s going on over on TikTok (yes we’re new to this so please be gentle)
- If you’re looking for locally-run sustainable, and lovely places to hang out the visit the Green Map
Covid Guidance:
Please stay safe while you are in Glasgow – please see our recommended guidelines here.
Travel, advice and practicalities
To be honest we are finding it hard to navigate all the advice and guidance around official delegates and what to do, so we have put all the info from Glasgow City Council, Uk Government and UNFCCC in one place – travel closures, registration procedures, safety advice. Find it here