Marlowe Hood Yahoo News 13 Dec 09;
COPENHAGEN (AFP) – Tens of thousands of activists demanding a planet-saving climate deal blazed a path to the door of the UN talks on Saturday in a raucous, festive rally that was also marked by sporadic violence and more than 960 arrests.
In a four-hour march to the Bella Center, where the conference was underway, a crowd estimated by police to number more than 30,000 pounded out calls for carbon cuts, social justice and a taming of global capitalism.
One protestor dressed as Santa Claus held up a banner saying global warming was occurring twice as fast in the Arctic as the rest of the world.
"My Rudolf cannot take it any more," he said, referring to the red-nosed reindeer of the famous Christmas song.
Other demonstrators sported banners that read: "There is no planet B," "Change the politics not the climate," and "Nature does not compromise".
"Each year 300,000 people are dying because of climate change," Kumi Naidoo, executive director of Greenpeace International, told the marchers. "This is not about adaptation, it is about survival."
"We cannot allow carbon traders to damage the world," added Nigeria's Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International.
"There is no such thing as clean coal or clean crude. Leave the oil in the soil, leave the coal in the hole," he said, leading a chant.
Police estimated the turnout at more than 30,000, while Danish television put the estimate at up to 100,000.
Climate Justice Action, a group involved in organising Saturday's demonstration, accused police of "violating human rights by detaining people in bitter cold, cuffed and forced into seated positions on the ground".
Rally organisers had repeatedly urged the crowd to remain non-violent.
But within minutes of the start, a disciplined band of hundreds of masked youths dressed head-to-toe in black threw bricks and firecrackers, smashing windows in the city centre.
Police moved in quickly, arrested a handful of the agitators, later identified as members of militant groups from northern Europe known as Black Blocs.
"Black Blocs members were seen at 1:41 pm picking up cobblestones that they later hurled near the former Stock Exchange, at several foreign ministry windows" and a bank, a police statement said.
Over the course of the day a total of 968 protesters were taken into custody, police said.
Four hundred were Black Blocs militants and most of these were foreigners, "showing that there was a hard core of activists who came to Copenhagen to sow disorder," a police spokesman told AFP.
About 150 people were released from custody late Saturday after questioning, the police statement said.
Later Saturday, a police officer was injured and four cars were burned out during clashes at a squat in Christiania, in central Copenhagen.
Related article: US, China face off at talks
Within the congress hall, Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu led children in creating "a sea of candles" representing a call from generations imperilled by climate change.
The march capped demonstrations scheduled in 130 cities around the world aimed at stoking pressure on leaders called to seal a landmark deal on climate change in the Danish capital next Friday.
Australia, the developed world's highest per-capita polluter, kicked off the chain with up to 50,000 people taking to the streets nationwide, organisers said.
In Indonesia, activists rallied outside the US embassy in Jakarta to urge the superpower to support developing nations.
In the Philippines, hundreds of protesters wearing red shirts banged on drums and sang songs outside Manila's City Hall demanding global action on climate change.
Connie Hedegaard, a former Danish climate minister who is chairing the 12-day Copenhagen marathon, said the demonstrations reflected a public mood that politicians could not ignore.
"It has taken years to build up pressure that we see around the world, and that we have also seen unfolding today in many capitals around the world," she said.
"That has contributed to making the political price for not delivering in Copenhagen so high that I am absolutely convinced that leaders consider very carefully whether they want to pay that price."
Nearly 1,000 held after Copenhagen climate rally
Reuters 12 Dec 09;
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Police detained nearly 1,000 people in Copenhagen on Saturday during mass demonstrations to demand that negotiators at U.N. talks agree a strong treaty to fight global warming.
Tens of thousands of people marched through the city as part of a global "Day of Action" of climate rallies from Australia to the United States, but violence flared at one stage when demonstrators smashed windows and set fire to cars.
Riot police detained more than 900 people around the Danish capital after black-clad activists threw bottles and smashed windows. A police spokeswoman said the number had climbed to 968 shortly after 10 p.m. (2100 GMT).
Police said four cars were set on fire during the evening. One policeman was hurt by a stone and a Swedish man injured by a firework.
"You don't have to use that kind of violence to be heard," said Connie Hedegaard, the Danish minister presiding at the U.N. talks. She condemned rioters after welcoming the main march at a candlelit vigil outside the conference center.
One activist group accused the police of abuse after they detained around 400 black-clad demonstrators at the back of the march and forced them to sit on a road for hours in near-freezing temperatures, hands bound behind their backs.
The main demonstration was led by dancers, drummers and banners proclaiming: "There is no planet B" and "Change the politics, not the climate." Some activists were dressed as penguins with signs reading: "Save the Humans!"
They marched to the conference center on the outskirts of the city, where negotiators from 192 nations are meeting from December 7-18 hoping to agree a new U.N. climate pact.
Organizers said up to 100,000 people took part in the march, hoping their rally and others round the world would put pressure on a concluding summit of 110 world leaders on Thursday and Friday.
SNOWMAN
In the main march, some held a giant inflatable snowman as a symbol of the threat of largescale melting icecaps and glaciers.
The U.N. panel of climate scientists says the accelerating loss of vital masses of ice, caused by rising temperatures resulting mainly from burning fossil fuels, will lead to rising sea levels, floods, desertification and heat waves.
The demonstration won wide praise.
"They marched in Berlin, and the Wall fell. They marched in Cape Town, and the wall fell," South African Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu told a candlelit vigil. "They marched in Copenhagen -- and we are going to get a real deal."
"There is a lot to fight for in the remaining week of negotiations," said Kumi Naidoo, chair of the organizing group "TckTckTck." Activists want the talks to agree a full legal treaty -- a goal most governments say is out of reach.
Elsewhere, thousands of Australians held a "Walk Against Warming." Naidoo said 4,000 events, such as marches or candlelit vigils, were being held from Fiji to Nepal to show support for deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
In Copenhagen, Caroline, a Danish girl aged 7, carried a homemade sign saying: "Look after our world until I grow up."
"Mountains are changing, glaciers are melting," said Nepalese Sherpa Pertamba, who came to Denmark to demonstrate with a group of 30 mountaineers. "Now is the time to think about future generations."
In Sydney, protesters carried placards reading: "I like clean energy and I vote," "No meat, no heat" and "No new coal mines," a reference to Australia's status as one of the world's leading exporters of coal.
Inside the conference hall in Copenhagen, delegates claimed progress on some fronts but the hardest decisions on sharing out curbs on greenhouse gas emissions and funding to help the poor are likely to be left for the summit.
"We have made considerable progress over the course of the first week," said Denmark's Hedegaard. She said she would hold talks on Sunday with 48 environment ministers. "We still have a daunting task in the next few days," she added.
Hedegaard said negotiators had made progress with texts such as defining how new green technologies like wind and solar power can be supplied to developing nations, and in promoting the use of forests to soak up greenhouse gases.
But delegates said there were deep splits on raising funds for poor nations and sharing the burden of CO2 cuts.
Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said he hoped for more action by all.
"China is calling on the United States to do more. The United States is calling on China to do more. I hope that in the coming days everyone will call for everyone to do more."
(Additional reporting by Sunanda Creagh, Erik Kirschbaum, Laure Bretton, writing by Alister Doyle; editing by Tim Pearce)
968 detained at climate rally urging bold pact
John Heilprin, Associated Press 13 Dec 09;
COPENHAGEN – Tens of thousands of protesters marched through the chilly Danish capital and nearly 1,000 were detained Saturday in a mass rally to demand an ambitious global climate pact, just as talks hit a snag over rich nations' demands on China and other emerging economies.
The mostly peaceful demonstrations in Copenhagen provided the centerpiece of a day of global climate activism stretching from Europe to Asia. Police assigned extra officers to watch protesters marching toward the suburban conference center to demand that leaders act now to fight climate change.
Police estimated their numbers at 40,000, while organizers said as many as 100,000 had joined the march from downtown Copenhagen. It ended with protesters holding aloft candles and torches as they swarmed by night outside the Bella Center where the 192-nation U.N. climate conference is being held.
There have been a couple of minor protests over the past week, but Saturday's was by far the largest.
Police said they rounded up 968 in a preventive action against a group of youth activists at the tail end of the demonstration. Officers in riot gear moved in when some of the activists, masking their faces, threw cobblestones through the windows of the former stock exchange and Foreign Ministry buildings.
A police officer received minor injuries when he was hit by a rock thrown from the group and one protester was injured by fireworks, police spokesman Flemming Steen Munch said.
Earlier, police said they had detained 19 people, mainly for breaking Denmark's strict laws against carrying pocket knives or wearing masks during demonstrations.
Inside the Bella Center, the European Union, Japan and Australia joined the U.S. in criticizing a draft global warming pact that says major developing nations must rein in greenhouse gases, but only if they have outside financing. Rich nations want to require developing nations to limit emissions, with or without financial help.
Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren, representing the 27-nation EU, told The Associated Press that "there has been a growing understanding that there must be commitments to actions by emerging economies as well."
He said those commitments "must be binding, in the sense that states are standing behind their commitments."
Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said his country — the world's No. 5 greenhouse gas polluter — will not offer more than its current pledge to slow its growth rate of emissions. It has offered to cut greenhouse gases measured against production by 20 to 25 percent by 2020.
"National interest trumps everything else," Ramesh told the AP. "Whatever I have to do, I've said in my Parliament. We'll engage them (the U.S. and China). I'm not here to make new offers."
China has made voluntary commitments to rein in its carbon emissions but doesn't want to be bound by international law to do so. In China's view, the U.S. and other rich countries have a heavy historical responsibility to cut emissions and any climate deal in Copenhagen should take into account a country's level of development.
Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists told the AP that rich nations are trying to re-negotiate the deal they reached two years ago on the island of Bali, calling on developing nations to limit emissions with financial help.
"It's going to blow up in their faces," he said. "The rich countries are trying to move the goal posts. And developing countries are not going to agree to that, no matter how loudly the rich countries demand it."
The tightly focused negotiating text was meant to lay out the crunch themes for environment ministers to wrestle with as they prepare for a summit of some 110 heads of state and government at the end of next week.
U.S. delegate Jonathan Pershing said the draft failed to address the contentious issue of carbon emissions by emerging economies.
"The current draft didn't work in terms of where it is headed," Pershing said in the plenary, supported by the European Union, Japan and Norway.
But the EU also directed criticism at the U.S., insisting it could make greater commitments to push the talks forward without stretching the legislation pending in Congress. Both the U.S. and China should be legally bound to keep whatever promises they make, Carlgren said.
Thousands also marched in a "Walk Against Warming" in major cities across Australia and about 200 Filipino activists staged a festive rally in Manila to mark the Global Day of Action on climate change. Dozens of Indonesian environmental activists rallied in front of the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta.
Environmentalists staged stunts and protests in 100 piazzas across Italy, from Venice's St. Mark's Square to a historical piazza in downtown Rome. They carried banners that read "stop the planet's fever" and asked passers-by to sign a petition calling on world leaders to reach a deal to reduce emissions.
In Copenhagen, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace laureate, and Greenpeace leader Kumi Naidoo were among those ratcheting up the pressure for a fair, ambitious and binding treaty.
Naidoo exhorted politicians to act bravely by crafting a fair, ambitious and binding treaty, so they can later "look their children and grandchildren in the eyes" and tell them they did the right thing. "Failure to do so will be the worst political crime that they would have committed," he said.
At a candlelight vigil on the conference grounds, Tutu compared the mass demonstrations outside to other popular movements that made a mark in history.
"We want to remind you that they marched in Berlin and the wall fell," Tutu said. "They marched in Cape Town and apartheid fell. They marched in Copenhagen and we are going to get a real deal."
Demonstrators chanted and carried banners reading "Demand Climate Justice," "The World Wants A Real Deal" and "There Is No Planet B," navigating for miles along city streets and over bridges past officers in riot gear, police dogs and the flashing lights of dozens of police vans.
Inside the Bella Center, delegates gathered around flat-screen TVs showing both the larger peaceful rally and the police crackdown on the young activists. Riot police tied them up with plastic cuffs and made them sit down on a closed-off street before busing them to a detention center set up for the climate conference.
Britain's Ed Miliband, the climate change secretary, said dealmakers have a long ways to go. "There are difficult issues to overcome," he said, "around emissions, around finance, and around transparency and they are all issues we need to tackle in the coming days."
But conference president Connie Hedegaard sought to reassure people that world leaders have come to seriously confront climate change.
"It has taken years to build up the pressure ... that we're also seeing unfolding today in many capitals around the world," Hedegaard said. "And I believe that that has contributed to making the political price for not delivering in Copenhagen so high."
___
Associated Press writers Jan M. Olsen, Karl Ritter and Arthur Max contributed to this report.
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