Saturday Climate Demonstrations
An estimated crowd of over 100,000 demonstrators marched through the streets of Copenhagen on Saturday, the largest gathering in this city since the end of WW2. South African Spiritual leader, Desmond Tutu inspired the crowd with a call to the rich nations to pay their debt saying, if you are able to bail out the banks, surly you can spend a few billions to stop climate change. “Wake up rich countries! We, the world expect a real deal.” He then handed UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer the countdown to CO2penhagen petition with 500,000 signatures.
Yvo de Boer responded by saying, “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. The demonstrators then began a 3-hour march to the center where a candle light vigil was held.
Arrests
Unfortunately the mostly peaceful march was disrupted when a small group of people dressed in black, called Never Trust a Cop, started digging up cobblestones and throwing them at the stock exchange along the route. Approximately a 1000 people were arrested as the large police force encircled both offenders and innocent bystanders, arresting them under a new law, which allows them to arrest anyone suspicious and hold them for up to 12 hours. May innocent people had to sit on the frozen ground with their hands bound behind them for 3-4 hours. On Sunday another 230 people were arrested when they tried to block the harbor here.
Heads of State Arrive Tomorrow
Tomorrow 110 heads of state arrive tomorrow to begin the final negotiations on and the draft of a global climate change treaty. The big question is will it be a political nonbinding treaty, as the richer, more powerful nations want or will there be a legally binding treaty as the majority of the poorer more impacted nations want?
Further complicating matters is the issue of climate debt and reparation by the industrialized countries towards the poorer nations. Indian environmentalist Sunita Narain states that “industrialized countries are responsible for over 70% of the carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere since the start of the industrial revolution, they have incurred a debt that must be repaid!” This topic make it even more difficult to leave Copenhagen with a legally binding treaty.
