Photo Essay: Action! Protest Erupts In Halls of UN Climate Negotiations: Youth Delegates Ejected

“Thousand Cancúns” action comes to the UN Climate Conference

All Photos by Orin Langelle/ Global Justice Ecology Project – Global Forest Coalition

Cancún, Mexico, December 7, 2010—the “Day of 1,000 Cancuns” actions.  A press conference hosted by Global Justice Ecology Project and organized by La Via Campesina, Indigenous Environmental Network and Friends of the Earth turned into a spontaneous action as speakers expressed anger over the direction of the climate talks in Cancún. Following the press conference, activists from Youth 4 Climate Justice led the protest out of the climate talks.

(protest description continued below photos)

Outrage

Youth Activists Lead Protest Out of Press Conference

Bolivian Ambassador Pablo Solon Speaks at the Protest

Three Youth Activists are Evicted from the UN Conference

10 Thousand Hectares of Jatropha Fed the Biodiesel Buses In Which the Youth Activists Were Evicted

Continued from Above:

The press conference began with Moderator Anne Petermann, of Global Justice Ecology Project evoking the name of Lee Kyung Hae, the South Korean farmer and member of La Via Campesina who committed suicide atop the barricades during protests against the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Cancún in 2003.  She pointed out that it is now climate change that is killing farmers and other marginalized peoples, and that the UN Climate Conference has degenerated into the World Carbon Trade Organization.

Speakers at the press conference included Delegates from the Paraguayan and Nicaraguan delegations, as well as Tom Goldtooth, of Indigenous Environmental Network, Mary Rose Taruc of the the Asian Pacific Environmental Network and Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, Kari Fulton of Youth 4 Climate Justice, Josie Riffaud of La Via Campesina, Luis Enrique of the MST of Brazil, and Ricardo Navarro of Friends of the Earth International.

Following the press conference, activists from Youth for Climate Justice and the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance led a protest out of the press conference and onto the front stairs, where Bolivian Ambassador Pablo Solon spoke to the crowd and the media frenzy.   The youth activists went on to loudly denounce the inaccessibility and unjust nature of the talks and express outrage over having been repeatedly denied permission to hold a youth delegation protest on the UN grounds.  As the youth marched away, they were accosted by UN security, stripped of their badges, put onto buses and evicted from the climate conference.

Simultaneous to this action, La Via Campesina was holding a mass march on the highway leading to the Moon Palace–where the climate conference is taking place.

To view the UN footage of the press conference, click here