Naomi Klein speaking at the Klimaforum09 in Copenhagen.
Tomorrow morning another large and important demonstration will be held in Copenhagen. This time the Climate Justice Action network is organizing a huge non-violent demonstration where the demonstrators are planning to march into the Bella Center, where the climate talks are being held. At the same time concerned NGO representatives and delegates are going to walk out and successfully shut down the talks and establish a people’s assembly. Why? Because the deal we really need is not on the table.
“On the 16th of December, at the start of the high-level “ministerial” phase of the two-week summit, we, the movements for global justice, will take over the conference for one day and transform it into a Peoples Assembly.
Our goal is to disrupt the sessions and open a space inside the UN area to hold the Assembly. The assembly will give a voice to those who are not being heard, it will be an opportunity to change the agenda, to discuss the real solutions, to send a clear message to the world calling for climate justice.”
This past weekend around 50 000 people from around Germany protested in Berlin against nuclear energy. The demonstrators protested against threats from the current right wing government to extend a deadline for the country’s 17 nuclear reactors.
“In Berlin an estimated 50,000 people have joined a demonstration against nuclear power in the run-up to the German general elections.
The rally was headed by a convoy of 350 tractors, which drove past the office of Chancellor Angela Merkel,” Radio Netherlands Worldwide reports.
Back in 2001 the former Social Democratic chancellor, backed up by the Greens, pushed through a new legislation in 2001 that would phase out nuclear energy from Germany within two decades. But the Social Democratic and Green government lost the election in 2005 to a right-wing coalition consisting of the current Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democrats and the liberal Free Democrats.
Angela Merkel, who successfully blocked a strong climate deal for the European Union last year, now wants to scrap the nuclear phase-out legislation that the SPD pushed through in 2001. This is similar to what is happening in Sweden after a coalition of right-wing parties won the recent election there. According to Merkel, Germany “cannot phase out nuclear energy as quickly as some imagine.”
So much is happening today in and around Italy as the G8 meeting is taking place. That is why we are trying out something new here on Green Blog. We will be reporting about all the climate-related news coming from the G8 camp with the help from Twitter.
Will the G8 leaders agree on a strong climate plan and a roadmap to the Copenhagen climate talks? Or will they fail once again? Stay tuned to find out!
John Hocevar, from Greenpeace’s flagship the Rainbow Warrior, writes about the assault on the Greenpeace staff blog:
“We are in Valletta Harbor in Malta. We learned that there were two vessels here owned by Fuentes, the tuna tycoon who controls over half the bluefin catch in the Mediterranean. We decided to board the vessel to inspect the cargo and documentation. Three women, Emma, Rita, and Liz, were the first to volunteer.
After the vessels refused our polite request to allow us access, Emma stepped on board to press the point. She was immediately attacked – they punched her, pulled her hair, picked her up and threw her overboard. One person hurled a large wooden pallet which whistled by our heads, and another tossed a full bucket of paint into one of our boats. If either of those had hit their intended targets, someone could have been seriously injured, but fortunately no damage was done.”
This all reminds me about the video which shows peaceful environmental activists who were protecting an old-growth forest in Tasmania, Australia, being violently attacked by timber workers.
Sometimes researchers are blamed of being alarmists stirring up fears of a fictional dystopia by the business-as-usual crowd. But it seems a forewarning of conflict over oil in Peru is proceeding according to exactly such a warning. The news first…
40+ dead at protest
In extension of free trade agreements the Peruvian government has plans for ‘developing’ the Amazon homelands of many indigenous communities – opening it for oil, mineral, logging, and agricultural exploitation. Locals have been protesting some of these initiatives claiming they are unconstitutional and in violation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. When police intervened fighting erupted. Body counts wary; one is as high as 81.
President Alan Garcia Perez is claimed to have been behind a massacre on suspects of being Maoist guerrillas in 1986. A former army colonel turned politician is siding with the protesters. An arrest warrant has been issued on protest leader Alberto Pizango who has gone into hiding.
In Gothenburg, the second-largest city in Sweden, climate activists from Klimax and the Friends of the Earth “decorated” cranes with banners, planted trees and even had a breakfast on the construction site to highlight and protest against the climate highway madness being built in Sweden.
“It’s bad enough that large amounts of taxpayers’ money is being wasted on projects that won’t work, but these road projects will even lead to an increase of carbon dioxide emissions. It’s ironically that that we activists’ risks getting arrested while the real criminals, who on a consciously and cynically way make decisions that will lock us into a continued increase of carbon dioxide emissions will go free. We just can’t sit quiet while climate criminal politicians threaten future generations living condition; it’s every citizen’s obligation to put pressure on the decision makers so they make climate friendly choices”, said Lovisa Börjeson from Klimax in Gothenburg.
After the Kingsnorth Climate Camp in August last year I heard that the police had been in overwhelming numbers and that there had been some “clashes” with the protestors. But I could never imagine how ruthless the actions from the UK police actually were against the peaceful and legal protestors until I saw this video:
Earlier this month Lib Dem MP David Howarth held a press conference in Westminster to present a “highly disturbing and potentially explosive report” about how the police in the UK turning into a police state by “criminalising legitimate protest”.
It documents a concerted campaign by police to deter, smear, intimidate, harass, and criminalise UK citizens who did nothing more than attempt to exercise their right to peaceful protest in the name of an important cause. The following film accompanies the report and fully conveys the extent of the scandal.”
Peaceful environmental activists who were protecting an old-growth forest in Tasmania, Australia, have been violently attacked by timber workers as they were blocking the road for them.
The timber workers attacked the car that the protestors were using to block the road using a sledgehammer and kicking in its windows. They later dragged out a 22-year-old protestor and kicked him repeatedly.
The brutal attack was caught on tape by one of the protestors:
Panorama picture of the Climate rally, July 5 2008. Photo: Peter Campbell.
On July 5, 2008 about 5,000 citizens of Melbourne gathered in the City Square to protest man-made Climate Change and then marched through the City Centre to make a HUMAN SIGN saying “CLIMATE EMERGENCY!” in the nearby Alexandra Gardens. An aeroplane was hired to take photos for the media – for an aerial photo of the “CLIMATE EMERGENCY!” Human Sign and other photos of this great event see: Climate emergency rally Melbourne July 5 2008 over at GreenLivingPedia.org.
The Climate Emergency Rally involved more than 50 community groups concerned about lack of Australian State and Federal Government action on climate change and variously linked to an Australian Climate Emergency Network.
Image shows activists shoveling down coal from the train. The dirty coal-plant Drax can be seen in the distant. Photo: Climate Camp.
Today activists from Climate Camp stopped a train carrying coal to Britain’s biggest coal-power station. Armed with a banderol with the text “Leave it in the ground” the activists started to shovel down the coal to the ground.
The protestors had food and water with them so they could be “able to remain on board for several days.”
“We are ready to stay here for as long as Gordon Brown and the government keep burning polluting fuel in these power stations,” said one of the protesters before clipping climbing ropes to the train’s wheels and the bridge girders. Although flimsy, the web would risk damage to the train or bridge if any attempt was made to drive off.”
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