A crowd of youth, activists, indigenous peoples, and perhaps some delegates, burst in chants of “Climate Justice Now!” and “Reclaim Power!” in the middle of the Bella Center where the Copenhagen Climate Talks are being held. Instantly surrounded by cameras and media, the group began a march out of the center towards the gates of the building where as many as 10,000 people are planning to meet them in what organizers are calling the Reclaim Power action.
The BBC is reporting that hundreds of people have already been arrested this morning as thousands more march on the Bella Center. It will be a challenge for them to get very close to the negotiations. As Adrian Wilson reports, security is tight around the conference venue with chain link fences, concrete walls, and hundreds of police and what looked like Danish military blocking the roadways — someone with me in line this morning reported seeing a water cannon going by.
More photos are below the fold.
The action may receive a good deal of sympathy from even the most mainstream civil society groups here at the talks. The UN has severely restricted the number of NGO representatives able to access the negotiations over the next few days. Yesterday, NGOs were allocated the “secondary badges” now necessary for entry for only about 20% of their participants. Tomorrow, the UN will only allow 1,000 civil society representatives into the talks. On Friday, only 90 were going to be allowed in, but representatives from the Climate Action Network and others argued security back up to 500.
“The surgical removal of non governmental organizations underscores the lack of democracy inherent in these negotiations.” said Professor Micheal Dorsey, a member of the Climate Justice Now! Network. “The United Nations process has systematically failed the world’s marginalized countries and consistently excludes those that would dare support and fight on behalf of those countries. The only way to avoid catastrophic climate change is fully supporting and including peoples movements like the very ones illegitimately removed from this process.”
“Today we are seeing thousands of people joining together to fight for climate justice,” said Natalie Swift, a spokeperson with Climate Justice Action. “We need systems change to create a world which is truly just and sustainable and solve the climate crisis.”
Keep checking IGHIH for more updates as this action evolves and marches attempt to open up the highly guarded Bella Center to the outside world.
If someone promises something to you, waking up hopes – and then the person lets you wait in the coold – with all the energy and effort you did because of the promise – then it´s very hard to stay friend with this person…
The UN who seemed friend for years and gave lots of hope has badly lost trust –
who wants still to depend on them in our most existential tasks and needs???
Would you make a deal with a person like this again?
Would you feel that the deals this person makes with others have anything to do with you?
It makes me really wondering: with whom does the UN and national-state leaders want to turn Climate Solutions into actions if not with the NGO´s from all over the world, if not with all of us on the streets and behind the screens?
Every national-state leader who don´t take distance to the strategies of the UN and the provocations of the danisch police towards innocent people – will have not more legitimation than any landlord, taking taxes, taking the power to judge, but not protecting the peoples existence.
IS NOT PLEASURE GOOD?
We live a doomed existence, which forces us to seek all pleasure and avoid all pain to block the reality that death is but a heart beat away. And as the vast majority feel they deserve more, to even the score, with much pleasure do they take all they can take, actually feel guilty if ever they miss an opportunity to take all they can take.
So the upper half of society, those with good jobs, nice savings and healthcare, they are the only ones who vote, the only ones that fund politicians, and Obama is doing exactly what they hired him to do. Namely:
(1) Keep the war going so the worldwide plunder of Empire USA will increase their wealth and plunder.
(2) Keep high finance bailed out so a bill market keeps investments and the dollar strong.
(3) Keep the capitalist medical industry unchanged. As no pleasure is there in being taxed so the lower half of society has decent healthcare.
(4) Keep polluting the environment. As no pleasure is there in being taxed to prevent a climate change that would reduce future populations of the lower class. For those of wealth and class feel that surely we have not enough water-front property and too many lower class people.