Fears grow of UN climate talks collapsing

Dec 17, 2009 News

Police line up those they arrested at the UN Climate Summit

– Conference president resigns; Police carry out wanton arrests

Chaos erupted inside and outside of the venue of the UN Climate talks in Copenhagen yesterday as fears grew that world leaders will fail to reach an agreement to save the planet from further climate change.
Inside, there was uproar when Connie Hedegaard, the president of the conference, stepped aside to allow the Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen to take over.
She will continue to act as her Prime Minister’s special assistant, but there are suspicions that she didn’t just resign out of formality, as she suggested, but because poor countries were fed up with her leadership. In any case, from the outset Hedegaard was considered a junior minister and disliked by the Prime Minister.
“With so many Heads of State and government having arrived, it’s appropriate that the prime minister of Denmark presides,” Hedegaard said in announcing her resignation.
The Danish Government has tried to put a plaster on this sore, by suggesting that the Prime Minister was only taking over because of the unprecedented attendance of world leaders.
Connie Hedegaard said: “With so many Heads of State and Governments arriving to give their statements it is appropriate that the Danish Prime Minister presides.”
However, Hedegaard has been under pressure. The G77 bloc of countries jumped down her throat for trying to force them to accept an agreement that pleases rich countries like the US and other big industrialized countries.
If Rasmussen thought he would have had an easy introduction and could push his weight around as the new president of the conference he was dead wrong.
He was just only warming up the seat when he chastised developing countries for seeking to delay approval of a new draft text for an agreement by focusing on “procedure, procedure, and procedure.”
He was quickly handed a rebuff by a representative of China, a G77 member, who said jumping ahead was equal to “obstructionism”:
“I think the matter isn’t ‘procedure, procedure, procedure’… You can’t just put forth some text from the sky,” the Chinese delegate jumped in.
Rasmussen, by this time red-faced, shot back: “People around the world [are] actually expecting something to be done from us.”
The Prime Minister presented a compromise proposal that seeks to build bridges between the many interests at the summit.
The proposal, keeping elements of the Kyoto Protocol structure, is said to form the basis for further negotiations, which are now entering into a crucial final phase.
In fact, there was to be a second draft dealing with the US and developing countries that are not duty bound by the existing Kyoto Protocol, the first global agreement to protect the environment.
But the Danish Prime Minister was rebuffed not only inside the conference but outside.
Friends of the Earth International, which organized a flood of protestors on the streets of Copenhagen, Saturday, denounced what they said was an attempt by the Danish Prime Minister to derail the U.N negotiations in favour of rich countries.
The organization also condemned the exclusion of critical civil society voices -including Friends of the Earth- from the UN Climate conference.
“Today, members of Friends of the Earth groups from around the world who arrived at the U.N. Bella Center to take part as official observers in the negotiations were told that their badges were no longer valid,” the organization said.
“The Danish Prime Minister is trying to push an illegitimate process which is opposed by many developing countries as well as civil society. This “untransparent” Danish initiative must be abandoned and the legitimate UN process restored.
The latest draft we saw from the Danish Prime minister favored US positions and undermined binding mitigation targets for developed countries,” said Lars Haltbrekken from Friends of the Earth Norway.
Back in the venue, the Danish Prime Minister then begged for order so the speeches could begin, and did the speeches come!
Hugo Chavez, the charismatic leader of Venezuela, gave a “hello!” to protestors who were bearing zero degree temperatures outside the conference venue to demand a fair climate deal.
Chavez said of the protestors: “What they’re saying on the streets is that ‘if the climate was a bank they would already have saved it’. I think it’s true. If the climate were a capitalist bank, one of the biggest ones, they would have saved it.
The Police wantonly rounded up protestors on the streets. Some were thrown to the ground, handcuffed and made to sit in the freezing temperatures. Journalists were also arrested.
Chavez was in typical form.
“I think (U.S. President Barack) Obama isn’t here yet. He got the Nobel Peace Prize almost the same day as he sent 30,000 soldiers to kill innocent people in Afghanistan.”
“There is an imperial dictatorship in this world, and we continue to denounce it. There is no democracy in the world. The destructive model of capitalism is eradicating life”.
“We need to consume less and distribute more. Climate change is certainly the most devastating environmental problem of the last century — droughts, hurricanes, floods the rising sea level, heat waves and so on,” Chavez said.