Obama appeals to young activists to stay in climate fight

Former U.S. President Barack Obama has dropped in on U.N. climate talks to urge young climate activists to stay in the fight

GLASGOW, Scotland -- At 19, Glasgow college student Ross Hamilton doesn't think highly of world leaders — “they chat a lot of” nonsense — or expect them to accomplish anything on a problem he cares deeply about, climate change.

But there is one former world leader Hamilton trusts, at least enough to join several hundred Glasgow college students crowding outside their college in the dark Monday in hopes of a glimpse of him: Barack Obama. “I've always liked him. I feel as if he's pretty honest."

The former U.S. president, one of the leaders responsible for the 2015 Paris climate accord, came to the U.N. global climate talks in Glasgow, wielding his cross-generational appeal to urge frustrated climate activists to stay in the fight. Even five years out of office, and now 60, Obama still claims a rapport with liberal and moderate young people in a way that President Joe Biden, 78, might not be able to pull off.

Inside the glass-fronted building where Hamilton and other students of Glasgow's Strathclyde University were waiting for him to emerge, Obama was sitting around a table with a dozen climate advocates from around the world, hearing them out and encouraging them.