It’s started snowing here in Copenhagen. The sky has clouded over and there’s a definite chill in the air. On Monday, hundreds of people with official accreditation began to get shunned from the UN climate change talks at the Bella Center. They queued up for several hours outside waiting to get in.
Inside, plenary discussions amongst delegates are being held in private. NGOs like Oxfam are getting excluded from discussions while corporate lobbyists are being included. Developing countries even suspended their involvement at one point, in protest at the way the talks were being hijacked by rich countries with differing agendas - influenced by the lobbyists.
I spoke to one journalist today who had been reporting from inside the conference. He said he’d overheard an oil lobbyist express his satisfaction at having successfully inserted a clause into one of the draft documents. The atmosphere at the Bella Center, my colleague said, could not be colder.
A few miles up the road, however, in the centre of town, much warmer discussions are taking place. I am writing from inside a huge leisure complex, where thousands of people - as many, if not more, than those gathering at the Bella Center - are all in complete agreement.
That place is Klimaforum, ‘The People’s Climate Summit’, where we all agree that climate change is an urgent problem that requires immediate solutions. No gesticulating, stalling, delaying, protracting or hesitating: just immediate, significant action that will slash carbon emissions by 40 per cent by 2020 at the very least.
In the three days I have spent so far listening to the discussions, attending the workshops and visiting the exhibitions here at Klimaforum, I have felt incredibly inspired. My only wish is that it was us who had the power to shape a new global climate deal, and not those at the Bella Center.
Today, environmentalist and Guardian journalist George Monbiot addressed Klimaforum for the first time. “I don’t believe that any of the delegates at the Bella Center - with a few exceptions like the Maldives - are serious about tackling climate change,” he said.
“All of them currently have two policies on fossil fuels. The first is to encourage their people to minimise global demand for fossil fuels by being more efficient and insulating their homes. At the same time all those nations are seeking to maximise the supply of fossil fuels.
“These are directly contradictory policies. Until this is acknowledged one policy will continue to undermine the other.”
Concluding his well-received speech, Monbiot issued a rallying cry to the audience who had assembled at Klimaforum. “I think it is disgusting that the developing countries should be forced to beg for money. This is something we owe to them due to our prolificacy of fossil fuels.
“The talks are not only producing the wrong answers, they are asking the wrong questions. As a result, I support the proposals to march on the Bella Center tomorrow and therefore turn the talks into a people’s climate summit.”
Tomorrow morning, thousands more demonstrators will gather at the Bella Center, braving the threats and intimidation from the Danish police who this week have enacted a policy of arresting innocent and peaceful protestors without reason. We will be there to ‘Reclaim the Power’.
So while it might be cold outside, with just three days of COP15 to go, the climate justice movement is really hotting up.
Tags: Bella Center, climate change, COP15, Copenhagen, George Monbiot, Oxfam, Reclaim the Power
