Climate summit sees protests, but scant progress
Source: Agencies |
December 17, 2009, Thursday
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DANISH police fired pepper spray and beat protesters with batons outside the UN climate conference yesterday, as disputes inside left major issues unresolved just two days before world leaders hope to sign a historic agreement to fight global warming.
Hundreds of protesters were trying to disrupt the conference, the latest action in days of demonstrations to demand "climate justice" - firm steps to combat global warming. Police said 230 protesters were detained.
Inside the cavernous convention hall, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, among the first leaders to address the assembly, echoed the protesters' sentiments.
"If the climate was a bank, a capitalist bank, they would have saved it," he said.
Earlier, behind closed doors, negotiators dealing with core issues debated until just before dawn yesterday without setting new goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions or for financing poorer countries' efforts to cope with climate change, key elements of any deal.
"I regret to report we have been unable to reach agreement," John Ashe of Antigua, chairman of one negotiating group, told the conference.
In those talks, the American delegation apparently objected to a proposed text it felt might bind the United States prematurely to reducing greenhouse gas emissions before Congress acts on the required legislation. US envoys insisted, for example, on replacing the word "shall" with the conditional "should."
Hundreds of protesters marched on the suburban Bella Center, where lines of Danish riot police waited in protective cordons. Some demonstrators said they wanted to take over the global conference and turn it into a "people's assembly."
As they approached police lines, they were hit with pepper spray. TV showed a man being pushed from a police van's roof and struck with a baton.
The Copenhagen talks so far have been marked by sharp disagreements between rich and poor nations. Still unresolved are the questions of emissions targets for industrial countries, billions of dollars a year in funding for poor countries to contend with global warming, and verifying the actions of emerging powers to ensure that promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are kept.
After nine days of largely unproductive talks, the lower-level delegates were handing off the disputes to environment ministers.
Organizers still hope to break deadlocks that threaten to leave the meeting with no major accomplishments to be presented to the more than 120 world leaders arriving for Friday's finale.
The lack of progress disheartened many, including small island states threatened by rising seas.
"We are extremely disappointed," Ian Fry of the tiny Pacific nation of Tuvalu said on the conference floor. "I have the feeling of dread we are on the Titanic and sinking fast. It's time to launch the lifeboats."
Hundreds of protesters were trying to disrupt the conference, the latest action in days of demonstrations to demand "climate justice" - firm steps to combat global warming. Police said 230 protesters were detained.
Inside the cavernous convention hall, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, among the first leaders to address the assembly, echoed the protesters' sentiments.
"If the climate was a bank, a capitalist bank, they would have saved it," he said.
Earlier, behind closed doors, negotiators dealing with core issues debated until just before dawn yesterday without setting new goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions or for financing poorer countries' efforts to cope with climate change, key elements of any deal.
"I regret to report we have been unable to reach agreement," John Ashe of Antigua, chairman of one negotiating group, told the conference.
In those talks, the American delegation apparently objected to a proposed text it felt might bind the United States prematurely to reducing greenhouse gas emissions before Congress acts on the required legislation. US envoys insisted, for example, on replacing the word "shall" with the conditional "should."
Hundreds of protesters marched on the suburban Bella Center, where lines of Danish riot police waited in protective cordons. Some demonstrators said they wanted to take over the global conference and turn it into a "people's assembly."
As they approached police lines, they were hit with pepper spray. TV showed a man being pushed from a police van's roof and struck with a baton.
The Copenhagen talks so far have been marked by sharp disagreements between rich and poor nations. Still unresolved are the questions of emissions targets for industrial countries, billions of dollars a year in funding for poor countries to contend with global warming, and verifying the actions of emerging powers to ensure that promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are kept.
After nine days of largely unproductive talks, the lower-level delegates were handing off the disputes to environment ministers.
Organizers still hope to break deadlocks that threaten to leave the meeting with no major accomplishments to be presented to the more than 120 world leaders arriving for Friday's finale.
The lack of progress disheartened many, including small island states threatened by rising seas.
"We are extremely disappointed," Ian Fry of the tiny Pacific nation of Tuvalu said on the conference floor. "I have the feeling of dread we are on the Titanic and sinking fast. It's time to launch the lifeboats."
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