Just a stone’s throw from Susan McKinstery’s flat, the helicopter whirs and the bustle of COP26 starts once again, as throngs of delegates snake down the street to queue outside the Clydeside venue. But, say McKinstery and other disability campaigners, the voices of disabled people in these vital environmental negotiations are not being heard.
Though she is living in the exclusion zone – the no-go zone around the Scottish Event Campus (SEC) where climate talks are taking place – the frantic activity does not touch her.
Instead, she says, the closed roads all around her mean she’s planning to stay at home for the next two weeks. Her major worry is that – as a disabled woman with a disabled wife – the carers the couple rely on will not be able to access the flat due to COP26-related disruption.
Claims have been made by the COP26 Coalition that this is one of the most exclusionary events ever, with delegates from poorer countries denied visas, unable to access required Covid-19 vaccines or eye-wateringly expensive accommodation and being forced instead to join remotely, if at all.