When we landed in Scotland, the 26th COP (annual Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) had not yet started, while in Rome the G20 summit is about to end, which also discussed climate change and the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees compared to pre-industrial levels.

As we blogged at the time, at COP26 in Glasgow (organised by the UK in partnership with Italy) we spent most of our time outside. Without accreditation, as usual we were unable to access the blue zone (dedicated to negotiations between countries) located on the Scottish Event Campus. This Conference and Exhibition Centre in Finnieston street, Glasgow, reminds us very much of Spodek (the flying saucer-like Polish Conference Centre that hosted the 24th COP in Katowice).

As the registration for the green zone (reserved for the public) was sold out as soon as it opened at the Science Centre, we followed from the street what was happening in parallel with the event: processions of demonstrations, protests, sit-ins, speeches, etc.

To find out what was going on inside the COP, we started by looking at the screens of the pubs and once at the screen of a law firm on Hope Street! This earned Thomas an identity check from the police, although he asked the guard for permission to take photos. Then, not having a TV in the accommodation (and contrary to the indications of our host who thought we couldn't have access to the news on the internet without a subscription), we still found a way to follow the summit on the web with Sky News (a 24-hour news channel whose reporters we had already photographed at the COP24 in Katowice, Poland - see the COP24 report ).

Every evening, after having witnessed everything we could in the streets of Glasgow as well as in front of the COP entrance, we went back to our room (rented in the north of the city), quite tired of the twenty kilometres we walked every day (the metro and bus fares being rather prohibitive for us). On the way, stopping for groceries at the nearby "Tesco" (a superstore open almost 24 hours a day), we scan the newspapers in the press section where the Climate Conference event and Boris Johnson's "lobbying and political corruption scandals plaguing the Conservative party" compete for the front pages of the Scottish Daily Mail, and others.   Then, while in the shared kitchen the beans and soup are warming, in the bedroom, we take turns doing our 'computer watch'. Unloading the camera memory cards onto the computer and saving them on external hard drives, and at the same time watching Sky News to see what has happened inside the official COP.

As the global Covid-19 pandemic has remained virulent for the past two years, in the halls, participants (having tested negative each day to gain access to the venue) must wear masks and respect physical distances. On the screen (we are capturing), we watch Alok Sharma, the chairman of the summit, and the speeches of the presidents and delegates of the countries, as well as civil personalities, associations and activists.

Perhaps the most striking image was that of Simon Kofe, Minister of Justice, Communication and Foreign Affairs of the Polynesian archipelago of Tuvalu and one of the representatives of AOSIS (Alliance of Small Island States). In a suit and in water up to his thigh, he addresses the COP26 to draw attention to the situation of islands and coasts, threatened with submersion by the rising waters due to global warming.

In this series of screen shots and photos of newspapers from the print media are fragments of what we were able to capture at the time of the official Cop26 in Glasgow (plus some images from the G20 that preceded it).

Enjoy your viewing!

When we landed in Scotland, the 26th COP (annual Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) had not yet started, while in Rome the G20 summit is about to end, which also discussed climate change and the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees compared to pre-industrial levels.

As we blogged at the time, at COP26 in Glasgow (organised by the UK in partnership with Italy) we spent most of our time outside. Without accreditation, as usual we were unable to access the blue zone (dedicated to negotiations between countries) located on the Scottish Event Campus. This Conference and Exhibition Centre in Finnieston street, Glasgow, reminds us very much of Spodek (the flying saucer-like Polish Conference Centre that hosted the 24th COP in Katowice).

As the registration for the green zone (reserved for the public) was sold out as soon as it opened at the Science Centre, we followed from the street what was happening in parallel with the event: processions of demonstrations, protests, sit-ins, speeches, etc.

To find out what was going on inside the COP, we started by looking at the screens of the pubs and once at the screen of a law firm on Hope Street! This earned Thomas an identity check from the police, although he asked the guard for permission to take photos. Then, not having a TV in the accommodation (and contrary to the indications of our host who thought we couldn't have access to the news on the internet without a subscription), we still found a way to follow the summit on the web with Sky News (a 24-hour news channel whose reporters we had already photographed at the COP24 in Katowice, Poland - see the COP24 report ).