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Welcome to Cancun: Police State Anyone?

By Anne Petermann, Global Justice Ecology Project

On November 25th in Denmark, Stine and Tannie, friends of GJEP Co-Director/ Strategist Orin Langelle and myself, were sentenced to four months of probation for violating Denmark’s anti-terrorism laws. Their crime: organizing for climate justice under the auspices of the international Climate Justice Action alliance.

They were arrested and convicted for being effective spokespeople and organizers.  For being strong women who stood up against the threats of state repression on behalf of the billions of voiceless people shut out of the UN Climate Negotiations in Copenhagen.  The people already suffering the impacts of the climate crisis—floods, droughts, the very ground beneath some communities melting away before their very eyes.

I had first met Stine in Copenhagen in September 2008 at the meeting where Climate Justice Action was founded.  More than 120 activists from around the world had come together to lay the groundwork for massive protests at the Copenhagen climate talks in December 2009. Orin and I got to know her better at subsequent CJA meetings in Poznan, Poland, Belem, Brazil and again in Copenhagen in March 2009.  Then, on December 3rd, when Orin and I emerged exhausted and bleary from our international flight to Copenhagen for the climate talks, Stine and Tannie met us with hugs at the airport, video camera in hand, and kindly led our exhausted selves from the airport to our hotel.  We spent the next several days in public spaces finalizing plans for the Reclaim Power action and playing “spot the undercover cop,” which most times was not difficult as they were straining so hard to hear us that they nearly fell off their chairs.

Stine, being Danish, was one of the foremost spokespeople for Climate Justice Action.  Over the months leading up to the Copenhagen Climate COP, she explained the logic of the “Reclaim Power” action that was to take place on December 16th—the day the high level Ministers arrived.  At this action, observers, delegates and Indigenous Peoples marched out of the failing climate talks at the Bella Center in protest not only of their ineffectiveness, but of their outright corruption by industry and the market.  At the same time that the halls of the Bella Center echoed with the booming voices of those reclaiming their power on the inside, Stine and Tannie were leading a contingent of demonstrators on the outside who were marching toward the Bella Center with the intent of meeting those marching out at the security fence that divided the sanctioned or “accredited” participants from those who were not.  The concept of the action was that those disaffected participants from the inside would meet the excluded from the outside and hold a “Peoples’ Assembly” at the fence where participants could discuss real solutions to the climate crisis and strategize ways to make real change.   Security, however, had other ideas and forcibly stopped both contingents before they met at the fence—using truncheons, pepper spray and whatever other “less lethal” weapons they happened to have on hand.

At that moment, the UNFCCC exposed its true self.  It had for years become increasingly undemocratic and repressive and now it was showing the world through this over zealous heavy-handed response to the simple demand of people to meet and talk.  Exposing the UNFCCC was one of the intentions of the action.  We knew the UNFCCC would show its true colors if confronted with people powerfully demanding justice and free speech.

Though she led the march on the outside, Stine was, in fact, accredited by Global Justice Ecology Project and had participated on the inside of the COP—in particular the day before the march out where she spoke at a Climate Justice Action and Climate Justice Now! joint press conference that GJEP had helped arrange.

We knew the “Reclaim Power” action would be a success when Stine walked into the packed press conference room and the cameras began flashing.

But for the action, Stine chose to be part of the group marching to the Bella Center from the outside.  She and Tannie stood on the sound truck and spoke to the crowd about the importance of the action and of standing up for climate justice in the face of oppressive climate negotiations where business and the markets reigned supreme.  When they approached the fence surrounding the Bella Center, they were violently yanked off of the truck by Danish security and arrested under terrorism charges for the heresy of insisting that people have a say in the increasingly urgent issue of the climate crisis.

The timing of the sentencing—nearly a full year after the so-called “crime” was committed, was undoubtedly to warn any ne’er-do-wells at the 2010 Cancun Climate Conference of the consequences of messing with the UN.  The UNFCCC does not want the image of being seen as a target for major protests by “civil society” groups and people around the world who are fed up with their inaction.

I first saw them demonstrate this uneasiness at the Climate Conference (COP-14) in December 2008.  During this climate conference, Climate Justice Now!—the alliance of organizations representing social movements, small farmers, fisherfolk and others on the front lines of the climate crisis—held a press conference.  At this press conference it was announced that Climate Justice Now! was joining together with Climate Justice Action to mobilize protests around the world on the opening day of the Copenhagen Climate conference (COP-15) the next year.  Coincidentally, this COP was timed to open on November 30, 2009—the ten-year anniversary of the “Battle of Seattle” where the meetings of the World Trade Organization were shut down by massive street protests.  This was where “Teamsters and Turtles” united to demonstrate the power that could be wielded when movements united to confront their common root causes—in that case, the WTO—the vilified symbol of corporate globalization, or neoliberalism.  CJN announced at the press conference in Poznan that we would be using that auspicious anniversary to organize protests around the world that would expose the similarities between the World Trade Organization and the UNFCCC—which had become the “World Carbon Trade Organization.”

The very next day, the UNFCCC Secretariat announced a change in plans.  COP-15 in Copenhagen would begin exactly one week later—on December 7th.

We had shown them our intentions and they had backed down.

The build up for the actions in Copenhagen created a rowdy spirit of resistance during the negotiations.  The African delegations walked out of the plenary chanting, “Two degrees is suicide!” when developed countries stated they would be unable to agree to any action that would limit overall global warming to less than two degrees.  Indigenous activists marched against the lack of respect given to the rights of Indigenous Peoples—especially with regard to the REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) scheme.  The Youth contingent protested almost daily.  When Obama waltzed into the talks to announce his secretly negotiated “Copenhagen Accord,” even the press booed.  The Secretariat could see the writing on the wall when they would have to face off against Latin America’s brand of resistance the next year at COP-16, which was scheduled for Mexico City.

Their response was to move the talks to Cancun, ironically the place where the WTO had met fierce resistance in 2003 and where Lee Kyung Hae, a South Korean farmer, committed suicide by plunging a knife into his heart atop the barricade protecting the WTO from the people.  His act of martyrdom helped kill the talks that year, which fell apart largely over agriculture.

Cancun, overall, is much more defensible than Mexico City and the location chosen by the Secretariat for COP-16 has multiple benefits.  First it is very small, allowing them to reduce the number of observers by around 40% and the number of press by over half.  Second, it is on the beach south of the hotel zone in Cancun, and has a four kilometer radius perimeter.  It will be heavily patrolled and almost impossible to approach without official sanction—aka the UNFCCC accreditation badge.

Before we even got onto the plane to head to Cancun, we were told by allies on the ground that the city is already under siege with military force visible everywhere.

Once more we threatened the UNFCCC with our collective power, and again they chose to hunker down behind fences and military.

Civil society participation at this COP has become almost impossible.  The Secretariat has organized the logistics so that the important delegates are all staying on site at the Moon Palace—site of the negotiations.  The rest of the activities take place at the Cancun Messe, a 20 minute bus ride farther away—when there is no traffic.

In order for the rest of us to access the Moon Palace without taking a $300P taxi is to take the shuttle bus which bypasses the Moon Palace and takes its cargo further south to the Cancun Messe.  From there, one must catch Bus #9 (Number nine, Number nine, Number nine…) back to the Moon Palace.  On the day that I am writing this (from the bus), I have been on the bus for almost two hours and we are not even to the Cancun Messe yet.

AND we have been warned by some of the country delegates that Observers may lose their access to the buses from the Cancun Messe at any time if we misbehave.  They could just shut down bus access for non-Parties (that is NGOs, Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations, social movements, media…people, that is, as opposed to governments).

Business and the market control the UNFCCC and now they have shown their true colors.  We have exposed them.  Now it is time for us to take the power to act against climate change back into our own hands.  They cannot do it.  They will not allow us to participate.  We must find other means.

There is no other choice.

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Filed under Posts from Anne Petermann, UNFCCC

Copenhagen Report Back with Anne Petermann

Listen to Executive Director, Anne Petermann, give a 28 minute report-back on Copenhagen in a radio interview with Kellia Ramares from Broadcaster at Large: Challenging the Assumptions We Live By, which is also being broadcast through the Women’s International News Gathering Service (WINGS).

Click here for the website and then Click on “Podcast – Climate Justice” in the menu on the left side of the screen.

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Filed under Copenhagen/COP-15

Climate Agreement Reached (or not…)

Below are my initial impressions upon listening to Barack Obama’s announcement about the so-called agreement reached in Copenhagen.  Tune in tomorrow for a full analysis of the negotiations and the outcomes.

Initial reactions:

* This was a total subversion of the UNFCCC COP process.  The Obama Administration succeeded in throwing aside the legally binding Kyoto Protocol, and the two track process agreed in Bali.

* The agreement reached is not only undemocratic, it is not legally binding, it is voluntary, and its commitments made on a country by country basis.
* Obama made an agreement with “key players” in the game and essentially flipped off the rest–especially the ALBA countries.  The African countries were outraged by the backroom dealings with Ethiopia by Obama and by France–which were carried out in the name of all of Africa without their consent.
Is Global Justice Ecology Project shocked at these developments?  Nope.  It is business as usual, as predicted.  This was the reason we participated in the founding of Climate Justice Action and the organizing of the Reclaim Power action that brought together social movements around the world to begin to discuss what the new world we know we need will look like.
More tomorrow,
Anne Petermann
Executive Director

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Filed under Climate Change, Climate Justice, Copenhagen/COP-15, Posts from Anne Petermann

REDD – Camila Moreno and Miguel Lovera on Democracy Now!

Camila Moreno and Chief Paraguayan Negotiator on Democracy Now!

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Filed under Climate Change, Climate Justice, Copenhagen/COP-15, Indigenous Peoples

Climate Justice Action Press Release and Video

CLIMATE JUSTICE ACTION

PRESS RELEASE
17th December 2009
Contact international media: +45 50669028
Contact Danish media: +45 41294994
media@climate-justice-action.org

VIDEO RELEASED OF COPENHAGEN OBSERVERS AGGRESSIVELY INTIMIDATED  BY POLICE
Video came to light today of COP15 delegates being aggressively intimidated by police. (1) http://bit.ly/6DOBHe

Many delegates who marched out of the UN talks during Wednesday’s protests were intimidated and threatened with arrest by Danish police, preventing them from joining a People’s Assembly outside the conference.

Danish police were filmed as they surrounded and attacked official delegates who were attempting to join activists and other accredited observers to form a Peoples’ Assembly calling for climate justice.
Kevin Smith from Carbon Trade Watch, who was hit by the police on the bridge, said: “We were trying to reach the point where the Peoples’ Assembly was being held in order to have a discussion about the need for real alternatives to the false solutions being promoted inside the climate talks. It’s hugely shaming for both the UN and the Danish government that they are willing to use batons, pepper spray, police dogs and tear gas to try and stop these critical discussions from taking place.”

Camila Moreno, a representative from Brazil for the Global Justice Ecology Project: “It was a trap. They knew it, they never had any intention of allowing us to get to our friends on the other side of the bridge. It was a combination of the Danish police and the UN.”

Eriel Tchekwie Deranger from the Indigenous Environmental Network said: “They didn’t want information from those on the inside being conveyed to those on the outside, especially by strong voices from the global South.”

Dorothy Guerrero, Focus On The Global South representative from the Philippines, said: “The restriction on our movement hindered the Peoples’ Assembly, which was an alternative space from the official agenda. For many of us from the South we are used to seeing that in our own countries, but for a country that has a reputation like Denmark it is quite shocking. The fact that they are shutting people out is in many ways like shutting out the majority voice.”

ENDS

NOTES
(1) Footage available on youtube http://bit.ly/6DOBHe
Video by Jess Worth from the New Internationalist
For high quality footage, contact Climate Justice Action on +45 50669028

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Copenhagen/COP-15

Reclaim Power! Mass Street Action Announced in Bella Center

Global Alliances Announce they will Protest 15 Years of Failed Climate Negotiations with Mass Non-Violent Civil Disobedience

At a press conference today inside the Bella Center, home of the COP 15 negotiations, civil society groups allied with the Climate Justice Now! (CJN) and Climate Justice Action (CJA) networks announced their plans for tomorrow’s Reclaim Power! demonstration, a confrontational mass action of non-violent civil disobedience.

Today representatives of CJN and CJA declared that given the urgency of the climate crisis it is time for dramatic action to expose the COP process as undemocratic, unjust and inadequate to deal with the scale of the problem. The purpose of this action is to reaffirm the historical responsibility owed by the North to the South for the climate crisis and focus on alternative solutions such as local sustainability and food sovereignty which consistently take a back seat to the “market-based solutions” hyped in the formal negotiations.

“Over the last 15 years, the COP process has been corrupted by corporate money and the refusal of the rich countries of the world to take responsibility for the problems they have created. At a very fundamental level, we need to talk about how we leave fossil fuels in the ground, but no one is talking about that inside the talks in Copenhagen,” said Ivonne Yanez of Accion Ecologica, which is a part of Climate Justice Now!

The action called for Wednesday December 16th will involve groups of activists simultaneously descending on the Conference centre from different starting points. The march will have 4 blocs: a general Blue Bloc led by movements from the Global South, a Green Bloc which will be a more mobile unit, the Yellow Bloc for those NGOs accredited to the COP15 but unable to access the meetings because of the secondary badge restriction and a creative Bike Bloc.

At noon, they will join up with the mass of people walking out of the climate talks, to hold the ‘Peoples’ Assembly’, a participatory platform of marginalized voices and real solutions to climate change.

“We have no more time to waste. If governments won’t solve the problem then its time for our diverse people’s movements to unite and reclaim the power to shape our future. We are beginning this process with the people’s assembly. We will join together all the voices that have been excluded-both within the process and outside of it. We will be both non-violent and confrontational. We will not let fences and physical barriers stand in our way, and we call upon the police to respect our right to make our voices heard.” said Stine Gry, a representative of Climate Justice Action.

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Copenhagen/COP-15