UN Projects ‘Go Away’ Onto Side of Its Own Building in Fight With Activists

GLASGOW, SCOTLAND — Tuesday evening noticed a battle of the projections in Glasgow. Activists despatched a message to the United Nations, and the UN struck again, although the group could have by chance informed onlookers in Glasgow to “go away.” 

The spat came about at an uncommon venue: On the facet of what’s often known as the SEC Armadillo, one in every of Glasgow’s landmarks and a part of the Scottish Event Campus (SEC) the place the UN local weather talks have been happening since final week.

It’s this constructing that UK activist group Gastivists, which oppose fuel tasks within the UK in addition to overseas, determined to focus on with a visible protest. Throughout the UN local weather conferences, the group has been executing actions to ship the message that the world methane pledge reached by greater than 100 international locations final week wasn’t sufficient. They have additionally criticized the EU’s continued investment in new gas projects regardless of multiple major bans on fracking from European leaders.

On Tuesday evening, the Gastivists arrange a projector throughout the River Clyde from the SEC campus to mission their messages. They efficiently obtained some phrases up on the facet of the SEC Armadillo, together with “GLOBAL FRACKING BAN,” “CLEAN GAS IS A DIRTY LIE,” “BAN FRACKING NOW” and “NET 0 IS NOT 0.” The latter has been a rallying cry of activists on the talks who’ve anxious web zero pledges might be an excuse to maintain digging up fossil fuels.

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COP26 management did eventually notice that the building had been hijacked—and took some puzzling measures to shoo the activists away. They first started by projecting their own colorful lights and patterns on the SEC. That had the unintended effect, activist Tommy Vickerstaff noted on Twitter, of making the Gastivists’ messages “look more exciting.” Which truthfully, sure.

When those measures didn’t work, the UN projector operators tried a new tactic: projecting “GO AWAY” over the activists’ messages—and onto their own venue. The result was a literal war of the words, as the activists’ messages were eventually met with “GO AWAY” projected several times over the building in red text.

“I haven’t stopped laughing since,” Vickerstaff wrote.

By engaging with the activists’ protests, the UN accidentally highlighted a big point of contention some higher-level leaders may rather keep quiet. The methane pledge reached last week was announced with a lot of fanfare, but has been highly criticized by grassroots groups and activists from around the world as not doing enough. Activists are particularly concerned about the role of fossil fuel companies in the agreement, as well as the world’s ability to deliver on the promised cuts without some of the biggest methane emitters being in the agreement.

Still, there seemed to be no onerous emotions between the warring projectionists. According to a tweet from Graeme Eddolls, an activist who was concerned within the demonstration, the official UN projectionist “came out and congratulated” their opponents.

Job effectively carried out, Gastivists!