Hundreds Held In Fresh Climate Protests

3:53pm UK, Sunday December 13, 2009

Andy Jack, Sky News Online

Danish police have detained more than 200 climate change activists in a second day of street protests.

Police surround protesters as trouble brews in Copenhagen on Saturday

Police stopped an unauthorised demonstration heading toward Copenhagen's harbour and said they found bolt-cutters and gas masks when they searched a truck at the head of the protest.

Only 13 of the 968 people detained during and after a mass rally in the city on Saturday remain in custody. Of those, three - two Danes and a Frenchman - were due to appear in court on preliminary charges of fighting with police.

An estimated 40,000 people had joined the mostly peaceful march toward the suburban conference centre where the United Nations climate conference is being held.

Riot police detained activists at the tail-end of the demonstration when some of them started vandalising buildings, including the former stock exchange and the Foreign Ministry.

A police officer received minor injuries when he was hit by a rock thrown from the group and one protester was injured by fireworks, a police spokesman said.

Saturday's demonstrations turned violent - 1,000 people were arrested

Critics blasted the Danish law that allows police to make preventative arrests if they believe a demonstration will turn violent and hold suspected troublemakers for up to 12 hours without a court appearance.

"They arrested 1,000 people. And they only followed up on three of them," said Amnesty International spokeswoman Ida Thuesen. "There are lot of people who haven't done anything and had no intention of doing anything."

Dr Rowan Williams

At the conference, the pledges on emissions cuts so far are short of the minimum proposed in a draft agreement to keep temperatures from rising to a dangerous level.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams is in Copenhagen to call for people to show greater respect to each other.

Dr Williams is also calling for a scaling down of the use and waste of energy across the world.

Church bells across Britain and other countries rang 350 times, a number that refers to what many scientists consider a safe level of carbon dioxide in the air.

know Tutu neutral

CO Tutu neutral

Sunday, 13 December, 2009 15:57 | News | JH | Leave a comment

Desmond Tutu gave an energetic speech on Sunday morning (Photo: Pamela Juhl)

South African spiritual leader addresses City Hall Square crowd

Video: Tutu: \”We want a legally binding agreement\”

Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu swayed the crowd on a chilly Sunday morning with an energetic speech designed to encourage the thousands present to fight climate injustice.

City Hall Square was filled to capacity as Tutu handed over the Countdown to CO2penhagen petition with 500,000 signatures to UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer.

But the South African didn’t pull any punches in his simple yet direct speech.

“Hello rich countries – wake up! It’s cheap to finance climate debt. 150 billion dollars a year would do it,” Tutu cried, to wild cheers and applause.

He also called on leaders meeting at the COP15 to agree to at least a 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050.

Meanwhile, Yvo De Boer gave some insight into what is predominantly on the minds of negotiators.

“I’ve just come from the Bella Center and they’re always talking about the financial crisis. But this is a moral crisis, which could result in a global climate crisis,” De Boer said.

How will Copenhagen be remembered?

How will Copenhagen be remembered?

Sunday, 13 December, 2009 15:34 | News | JH | Leave a comment

We are in the midst of the largest international event in Copenhagen ever.The delegates are on our doorsteps and many foreign stakeholders and organisations are here. On everyone’s lips is the question – will there be a legally binding treaty, or at least a strong political message and a promise for COP16?

By Janne Aagaard and Johanna Olesen

Come January, when life as we know it gets back to normal, we might all breathe a collective sigh of relief,. Christmas gifts have been unwrapped, the relatives are back home and the cat survived your sister’s three kids. On top of this, the illuminated exhibits and other art statements around Copenhagen are gone, and the numerous police officers have left the streets, the hotels and airport are emptied, the international media folks have vanished to the Next Big Thing. Even our queen of climate, Connie Hedegaard, has left for Brussels and the reach and impact of the new queen in town, [newly-installed climate minister] Lykke Friis, is yet to be determined.

But how will Copenhagen be remembered? The grand idea of a Copenhagen treaty to replace the one from Kyoto is already in tatters since our prime minister eliminated the option even before the conference began.

And if radical groups like Never Trust a Cop get much media attention, the message of civil society’s many and creative ideas on climate change may never get across to the general public. We at People’s Climate Action pray that the many concerts, innovative solutions, cultural events and knowledge sharing will be heard – and may continue to be heard when everyone has left.

Instead, the media wants to know: How many will participate in the demonstrations? Do you plan to cause trouble? Is Copenhagen a safe town?

But what really matters ‘the day after tomorrow’ is not how the media reported the conflicts, but how we all act in everyday life. Will we consider the climate in our daily choices, such as what we eat, what we buy, how to get to work or where we go for our holidays?

The integrity of the decisions made by Mr and Mrs Jensen [i.e. Denmark’s Mr and Mrs Jones] and their kids, every day, is more important. In civil society, a business decision maker or a politician is no different to any of us who do not have as much impact on the climate. We all do. Imagine a procurement manager for a large company. If he always buys organic food for his children, would he choose a supplier that is not Fair Trade for the company’s? Civil society and civil personalities are one and the same.

Consider the possibility that regardless of a COP15 deal or not, our awareness is increased so much about climate issues that people are able to act in a much more climate-friendly way. What if we can be remembered as having helped make that happen?

What people do in their everyday lives is the most powerful force for the climate. Many thinkers, politicians and writers have been stuck in a rut for a long time – but it is the actions of people that really rock the world and the climate. That is what the day after tomorrow is all about.

People’s Climate Action is an umbrella organisation of 40 small and large Danish NGOs with the aim of ensuring that COP15 will have the maximum impact politically, socially, and culturally. They are funded by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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