Copenhagen: mass arrest on demo, timeline, how to get in to DK, COP15 radical news aggregator, climate radio

CJA press release:
Copen­hagen Police Accused of Vio­lat­ing Human Rights at UN Sum­mit

Sat 12 Dec

mass arrests Denmark-styleCJA press release:
Copen­hagen Police Accused of Vio­lat­ing Human Rights at UN Sum­mit

Sat 12 Dec

Dan­ish police have indis­crim­i­nate­ly arrest­ed hun­dreds of cli­mate jus­tice activists dur­ing a cli­mate change protest made up of 100,000 peo­ple that took place today in Copen­hagen. Ques­tions have been raised about the fact that the arrests occurred in a dif­fer­ent time and place to where some trou­ble had momen­tar­i­ly flared ear­li­er in the day. Jour­nal­ists have been restrict­ed from report­ing at the site of the arrests since 1800hrs.

It’s esti­mat­ed that 100 peo­ple are still being held on the road in extreme­ly cold weath­er, cuffed and forced into seat­ed posi­tions in lines (1). They have expressed severe phys­i­cal dis­com­fort and have no access to water, med­ical atten­tion or toi­let facil­i­ties since 1530hrs. Many activists are report­ed to have uri­nat­ed them­selves while detained on the ground.

An esti­mat­ed 200 have been removed from the site and tak­en away in coach­es. Sev­er­al peo­ple are report­ed to have faint­ed around 1945hrs.

Hel­ga Matthi­assen, who was detained for an hour before being released due to an injury she had recent­ly sus­tained, said, “Of course we’re angry — peo­ple all over the world are angry about being lied to by gov­ern­ments who are mak­ing a cor­po­rate deal at the cli­mate talks, and now when we try to protest against this on the streets we are ran­dom­ly held by police.

“Not only have we been denied the right to protest, but our basic human rights have also been ignored in this ludi­crous, staged police exer­cise. It seems Dan­ish Police have a new mot­to: why just crim­i­nalise pro­test­ers, when you can dehu­man­ise them too?” (2)

ENDS

Con­tact: 0045 5066 9028 (Inter­na­tion­al)
0045 4129 4994 (Dan­ish)
media@climate-justice-action.org

_______________________________________

NOTES TO EDITORS
(1) http://twitpic.com/t7dts
(2) See Hel­ga inter­viewed on TV2 News, 2015 broad­cast http://news.tv2.dk/?channel

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Video

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At the demo in Copen­hagen on the 12.12.09, some demon­stra­tors smashed in the win­dows of the Stock Mar­ket, also the min­istry of for­eign affairs had its win­dows bro­ken.

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Time­line

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COP15 EASIER access to Den­mark and COPENHAGEN

The Dan­ish and Ger­man police forces and the intel­li­gence ser­vices (PET, FE, BND) of both coun­tries, and prob­a­bly also some oth­er coun­tries, “vio­lence ser­vices” has made it more dif­fi­cult to enter Den­mark in order to avoid polit­i­cal activist to enter the coun­try and join the demos at COP15 etc.

BUT, there are more, per­haps, less con­trolled bor­ders to Den­mark, they fol­low below, and also warn­ings against the more con­trolled bor­der cross­ings.

DONT TRAVEL THROUGH:

Copen­hagen Air­port or Bil­lund Air­port

and;

The land bor­der cross­ing at PADBORG, KRUSÅ, in oth­er words AVOID any land bor­der cross­ings in Jyl­land!

TRAVEL BETTER THROUGH THESE CROSSINGS
(so far):

RED ROUTE ONE;
Trav­el to Ros­tock in Ger­many (old DDR), best by train/bus/car, then jump on the fer­ry (SCANDLINES) to GEDSER port in Den­mark, less heavy con­trolled, at the moment.

Then jump on the train/bus to Copen­hagen, takes two hours.

RED ROUTE TWO;
Trav­el to Hels­ing­borg in Swe­den, best by train/bus/car, then jump on the fer­ry (SCANDLINES or HH-fer­ries) to HELSINGØR port in Den­mark, less heavy con­trolled, at the moment.

Then jump on the train to Copen­hagen, takes one hour.

Or take the local train to Hillerød (half an hour) and then the S‑train to Copen­hagen, 40 mint. trav­el time.

RED ROUTE THREE;
Trav­el to Oslo in Nor­way, take the fer­ry direct to Copen­hagen (DFDS).

RED ROUTE FOUR;
Trav­el to Born­holm, then by fer­ry to Køge, then S‑train to Copen­hagen (half hour).

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aggre­gat­ing rad­i­cal news about Copen­hagen

iCOP15

Report your news from the streets of Copen­hagen on http://indymedia.dk.
Report from actions world­wide at http://climateimc.org and/or at you local IMC.
Any feed miss­ing? Check on http://icop15.org/feeds.

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Cli­mate Radio is fil­ing dai­ly audio bul­letins from inside the Bel­la Cen­tre where the most impor­tant talks in human his­to­ry are hap­pen­ing. Dur­ing the sec­ond week we’ll also have reports from the street actions and par­al­lel People’s Sum­mit aka Kli­mafo­rum. Copen­hagen Dai­ly has a run­ning time of 60 min­utes

EF! Rome — action @ Ara Pacis, Rome, Italy / National newspaper press

Earth First! Rome press:

EF! Rome - action @ Ara Pacis, Rome, Italy / bannerEarth First! Rome press:

All’alba di saba­to 12 dicem­bre un grup­po di attivisti di Earth First! Roma han­no scel­to l’Ara Pacis Augus­tae come cor­nice per il pro­prio appel­lo ai leader pre­sen­ti al ver­tice Copen­hagen. Abbi­amo infat­ti col­orato la fontana del­l’Ara Pacis di verde e aff­is­so uno striscione sul muro di fronte a via Toma­cel­li che recita­va “Earth First! Act Now”. Rite­ni­amo non più dero­ga­bile un vero impeg­no sul fronte ambi­en­tale che evi­den­te­mente non può lim­i­tar­si alla tas­sazione delle emis­sioni di co2 ma che deve risol­vere tut­ti i nodi del­la crisi ambi­en­tale mon­di­ale e nazionale: rifiu­ti, con­sumo del ter­ri­to­rio, OGM, via­bil­ità.
“Pri­ma la Ter­ra, Agis­ci ora!”

At sun­set of Sat­ur­day 12th Decem­ber a group of Earth First! Rome’s activists had choosen the Ara Pacis Augus­tae as the right place for their call to the lead­ers at G20 of Copen­hagen. We had coloured the Ara Pacis’s foun­tain with green and put a ban­ner on the wall in front of Via Toma­cel­li where it was writ­ten “Earth First! Act Now”. We believe that a tru­ly engage­ment on the ambi­ent front can’t be dero­gat­ed much longer and can’t con­cern only on the tax­a­tion of co2 emis­sion but also has to resolve the prob­le­ma of glob­al and nation­al cri­sis of ambi­ent: garbage, the waste of ter­ri­to­ry, OGM, road net­work.
“Earth First! Act Now!”

AGENZIE RIPORTATE DAI GIORNALI/NEWS FROM ALL NATIONAL NEWSPAPER: (ITA)

CLIMA: ROMA, ECOLOGISTI TINGONO DI VERDE ACQUA FONTANA ARA PACIS

Roma, 12 dic. (Adnkro­nos) — Dopo il Colosseo anche l’Ara Pacis e’ sta­ta fat­ta ogget­to di un’azione dimostra­ti­va da parte di una non meglio pre­cisa­ta orga­niz­zazione ecol­o­gista. Intorno alle 6.00 del mat­ti­no, infat­ti, ignoti han­no incol­la­to un man­i­festo di cir­ca 2 metri di lunghez­za al muro ester­no del­l’ed­i­fi­cio Meier, sot­to la scrit­ta ”Ara Pacis Augus­tae”, e tin­to di verde l’ac­qua del­la fontana anti­s­tante il piaz­za­le.

Il man­i­festo reca­va in inglese la scrit­ta ”La Ter­ra pri­ma di tut­to. Agis­ci ora” (”Earth first. Action now”), che las­cia pochi dub­bi sul­la matrice e lo scopo del gesto, che cade in coin­ci­den­za con il ver­tice mon­di­ale di Copen­hagen sul cli­ma. I fun­zionari e gli addet­ti al Museo, imme­di­ata­mente inter­venu­ti, han­no rimosso in pochi minu­ti la scrit­ta e svuo­ta­to la fontana, per evitare dan­ni per­ma­nen­ti alla strut­tura.

In relazione a quan­to accadu­to, il Sovrain­ten­dente ai Beni Cul­tur­ali del Comune di Roma, Umber­to Broc­coli, ”invi­ta chi man­i­fes­ta in questo modo le pro­prie, pure con­di­vis­i­bili, pre­oc­cu­pazioni per le sor­ti del cli­ma del piane­ta a far­lo con mag­giore sen­so civi­co e nel rispet­to dei mon­u­men­ti di Roma e di quan­ti lavo­ra­no per la loro tutela e val­oriz­zazione”. Ulte­ri­ori indagi­ni, gra­zie all’e­same delle reg­is­trazioni fil­mate del cir­cuito di videosorveg­lian­za, potran­no dare mag­giori infor­mazioni sug­li autori e le modal­ità del gesto.

ARA PACIS, COMUNE: BLITZ ECOLOGISTI, TINTA VERDE ACQUA FONTANA
“Dopo il Colosseo anche l’Ara Pacis è sta­ta fat­ta ogget­to di un’azione dimostra­ti­va da parte di una non meglio pre­cisa­ta orga­niz­zazione ecol­o­gista. Intorno alle 6 del mat­ti­no di saba­to 12 dicem­bre, infat­ti, ignoti han­no incol­la­to un man­i­festo di cir­ca 2 metri di lunghez­za al muro ester­no del­l’ed­i­fi­cio Meier, sot­to la scrit­ta ‘Ara Pacis Augus­tae’, e tin­ta di verde l’ac­qua del­la fontana anti­s­tante il piaz­za­le”. Lo rende noto il Campi­doglio. (omniroma.it)
(12 dicem­bre 2009 ore 16:11)

IL MATTINO, 12/12/09:
Man­i­fes­tazione all’Ara Pacis. Un man­i­festo di cir­ca 2 metri con la scrit­ta in lin­gua inglese «La Ter­ra pri­ma di tut­to. Agis­ci ora» è sta­to incol­la­to sta­mani al muro ester­no del­l’Ara Pacis, e l’ac­qua del­la fontana del mon­u­men­to augus­teo è sta­ta col­orata di verde. I man­i­fes­tanti fan­no parte del movi­men­to eco­logi­co ‘Earth First’. I fun­zionari e gli addet­ti al museo han­no rimosso in pochi minu­ti — spie­ga una nota del Campi­doglio — la scrit­ta e svuo­ta­to la fontana, per evitare dan­ni per­ma­nen­ti alla strut­tura.

Our Climate, Not Your Business Demo +Medic Arrests

11 Decem­ber 2009

11 Decem­ber 2009
This morn­ing at 10am cli­mate activists gath­ered at Nytorv to take part in the Don’t Buy the Lie march to take direct action in protest against cor­po­ra­tions tak­ing part in Cop15 [report].  Lead­ing police a mer­ry dance, pro­tes­tors moved en masse up Rosenørns Allé to the Copen­hagen ‘Forum’ venue, which is host­ing the cyn­i­cal green-wash­ing Green Busi­ness expo dur­ing Cop15. The mes­sage to the cor­po­ra­tions was to stop turn­ing the sav­ing of our envi­ron­ment into yet anoth­er busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ty in which car­bon cred­it trad­ing, tar sands and CCS are the order of the day.

Peo­ple were blocked sev­er­al times by police but also man­aged push through and around sev­er­al attempts by police to block their path. In total there is report­ed to be over 60 arrests, although it is unclear how many are just pre­ven­ti­ta­tive arrests where the peo­ple will be released after up to 12 hours. What is clear is that police tar­get­ed the Street Medics, arrest­ing 11 of them before the demon­stra­tion, and threat­en­ing them that they would be deport­ed if they were found on the streets again [report]. Many activists were stopped and searched out­side the con­ver­gence cen­tre / sleep­ing space at Ragn­hildes­gade [pho­tos]. There were also sev­er­al reports of peo­ple being searched through­out the city [2], with some arrest­ed for hav­ing things like spray paint or items that could be used to cov­er faces. Ear­li­er in the day the fire ser­vice also told Ragn­hilds­gade accom­mo­da­tion space that part of the build­ing could not be used for sleep­ing. Mean­while more peo­ple are trav­el­ling to Copen­hagen ahead of the oth­er protests and events sched­uled for the next week.

[See Indy­media Full Time­line #1] [Pho­to Reports 1 | 2] [Video] [KanalB Video] [Graswurzel.tv Video] See also [Mod­kraft time­line | en] [icop15 Aggre­ga­tion]

Video inter­view With Angel­i­ca Navar­ro — Boli­vian Nego­tia­tor | Video: Cli­mate Pirates Arrive | Cli­mate Radio Show #4 | Cli­mate Chron­i­cle News­pa­per #3 Pdf

The First COP15 Actions Taking Shape

10 Decem­ber 2009

11th Dec: For lat­est news cov­er­age of events see Time­line Reports | Live Video from Cop15live | Modkraft.dk Time­line (dk)

Climate denial conference disrupted10 Decem­ber 2009

11th Dec: For lat­est news cov­er­age of events see Time­line Reports | Live Video from Cop15live | Modkraft.dk Time­line (dk)

From “the inside”:
The cli­mate actions start­ed last night with fifty Amer­i­can activists tak­ing over a con­ser­v­a­tive host­ed cli­mate denier con­fer­ence. Today activists cre­at­ed a “cli­mate storm” inside the Bel­la Cen­tre and spoke against “sui­cide pacts” for low-lying nations, that would be destroyed by unchecked cli­mate change. Yes­ter­day the cli­mate sum­mit halt­ed, when one of these threat­ened nations, Tuvalu, demand­ed com­mit­ment to a legal­ly-bind­ing agree­ment.

At the bor­ders:
The police has been more active con­trol­ling the bor­ders around Den­mark, for instance near the Ger­man city of Flens­burg, but it’s still pos­si­ble to enter Den­mark. There are also reports of peo­ple have been reject­ed through to Den­mark from Swe­den.

In the streets:
The cops in Copen­hagen are gen­er­al­ly quite active patrolling and stop­ping and search­ing peo­ple at sev­er­al cli­mate active points, when they aren’t just harass­ing peo­ple with paint.

While being a qui­et day, the police has­n’t been on the slow side with break­ing leg­is­la­tion by mak­ing deals with Dan­ish offices regard­ing sur­veil­lance data of pub­lic roads.

Yes­ter­day’s fea­ture

For more cov­er­age see: Cli­mate Jus­tice Chron­i­cle News­pa­per Issue #2 | Democ­ra­cy Now! Broad­cast­ing Dai­ly | OneCli­mate

Copenhagen Getting Ready for COP15 Protests

10.12.09

The Trade and Cli­mate Car­a­van [more] will final­ly arrive tonight to Copen­hagen [report], mean­while hun­dreds of activists are already in town putting the final touch­es to dif­fer­ent aspects of the mobil­i­sa­tions [2]. Police also seem to have stepped up their activ­i­ty, and in a move appar­ent­ly designed to harass pro­tes­tors they raid­ed the Ragn­hildgade acco­mo­da­tion space in the ear­ly hours of 9th Decem­ber [Fea­ture | Press Release], a few days after a raid at activist hous­ing in Tegl­hol­men.

COP 15 gears logo10.12.09

The Trade and Cli­mate Car­a­van [more] will final­ly arrive tonight to Copen­hagen [report], mean­while hun­dreds of activists are already in town putting the final touch­es to dif­fer­ent aspects of the mobil­i­sa­tions [2]. Police also seem to have stepped up their activ­i­ty, and in a move appar­ent­ly designed to harass pro­tes­tors they raid­ed the Ragn­hildgade acco­mo­da­tion space in the ear­ly hours of 9th Decem­ber [Fea­ture | Press Release], a few days after a raid at activist hous­ing in Tegl­hol­men.

Mean­while protests have already start­ed in Copen­hagen. On the open­ing day of Cop15 there was a Die-in protest at the Bel­la Cen­ter along with many inter­ven­tions from dif­fer­ent goups demand­ing Cli­mate Jus­tice. Nao­mi Klein spoke at the open­ing event of the Kli­mafo­rum, say­ing “Let’s not restrict our­selves to polite march­es and for­mu­la­ic pan­el dis­cus­sions” [report + video]. The sec­ond day of Cop15 saw protests by African groups and oth­ers fol­low­ing the leek­ing of the so-called ‘Dan­ish text’[2].

On wednes­day, the Sum­mit nego­ti­a­tions were sus­pend­ed after inter­ven­tions by Tivalu and oth­er small Island states and their sup­port­ers, while youth activists took over a live web­cast of cli­mate change denial.

Infor­ma­tion about the intend­ed polic­ing of the Dan­ish bor­ders is also becom­ing clear­er. Borderwatchcop15 reports about police con­trols on the motor­way near Flens­burg, as well as reports of coach­es get­ting into Copen­hagen being stopped and searched. But this is not dis­cour­ag­ing peo­ple from trav­el­ling to Copen­hagen, nor is it stop­ping activists from set­ting up infra­struc­ture in the city itself: the Be The Media / Indy­media Media Cen­tre has now been set up and it is open for busi­ness, a First Aid Cop15 group has been set up, as well as Street Medics, a Trau­ma Sup­port Group [more], info­points and acco­mo­da­tion [see google map 1,2].

For more cov­er­age see: Cli­mate Jus­tice Chron­i­cle News­pa­per | Democ­ra­cy Now! Broad­cast­ing Dai­ly | OneCli­mate

See also:

Anthill Mob reinforce anti-expansion message during Copenhagen climate talks, London City Airport

8/12/2009

London City Airport sloganned8/12/2009
Activists in east Lon­don have paint­ed two mega-mes­sages against growth in avi­a­tion — and flights at Lon­don City Air­port in par­tic­u­lar — to coin­cide with the Copen­hagen cli­mate sum­mit. One mes­sage say­ing, ‘Still cli­mate crim­i­nals!’ is writ­ten in giant let­ters on the top of a 60ft hill sit­u­at­ed just south of City Air­port, which planes pass direct­ly over.

“It’s a mes­sage to the del­e­gates fly­ing to and back from Copen­hagen,” explains Elsie Wai, spokesper­son for local anti-expan­sion group, the Anthill Mob. “The con­sci­en­tious will be tak­ing the train but the self­ish will be fly­ing. We’re remind­ing the self­ish del­e­gates that they’ll remain cli­mate crim­i­nals until they start think­ing green.”

The group are also angry about Lon­don City Airport’s con­tin­u­ing attempts to increase busi­ness and pri­vate flights. The air­port cur­rent­ly has approx­i­mate­ly 80,000 com­mer­cial flights a year but aims to increase this to 170,000 by 2030. “That means more pol­lu­tion, more glob­al warm­ing and more mis­ery for local peo­ple,” says Elsie.

The Anthill Mob’s sec­ond mes­sage is writ­ten in 10ft high let­ters along the bound­ary fence of Tate & Lyle’s sug­ar refin­ery — sit­u­at­ed beside the Dock­lands Light Rail­way approach to the air­port. The mes­sage reads: ‘Drop the sweet talk: no flight expan­sion at City Air­port.’

“You only have to look around the area next to the air­port to see that it is in ter­mi­nal decline,” says Elsie. “The air­port has made mil­lions in prof­its but all we get in return is more noise and pol­lu­tion. Pret­ty much every­thing at City Air­port is auto­mat­ed. As it stands, a tiny num­ber of peo­ple ben­e­fit from employ­ment at the air­port while the wider com­mu­ni­ty and the cli­mate suf­fers.”

Cas­es of asth­ma and child mor­tal­i­ty are already above the nation­al aver­age in the bor­ough of Newham – where the air­port is based. Expand­ing the air­port means a mas­sive increase in pol­lu­tion which will fur­ther blight one of the poor­est areas in Lon­don.

Autonomous Pixie Action in Solidarity with Mainshill

In the ear­ly hours of Mon­day the 7th of Decem­ber a drilling rig and oth­er machin­ery was sab­o­taged at Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. This action was tak­en by a group of autonomous peo­ple in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all those who oppose the devel­op­ment of Main­shill Wood into an open cast coal mine.

In the ear­ly hours of Mon­day the 7th of Decem­ber a drilling rig and oth­er machin­ery was sab­o­taged at Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. This action was tak­en by a group of autonomous peo­ple in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all those who oppose the devel­op­ment of Main­shill Wood into an open cast coal mine.

Actions such as these are not mind­less acts of van­dal­ism, but valid respons­es to cor­po­ra­tions like Scot­tish Coal and their bla­tant dis­re­gard for life and com­mu­ni­ties of peo­ple every­where. Such acts dam­age the rich and wealthy in the only place that mat­ters to them – their wal­lets. As life on earth is threat­ened in every direct by the blind pur­suit of prof­it, we look not to politi­cians in Copen­hagen for inde­ci­sion, but take mat­ters into our own hands.

Burn­ing coal under­mines the very abil­i­ty of human beings to live on a healthy vibrant plan­et, a right our ances­tors enjoyed and our chil­dren should inher­it. Yet the cli­mate is chang­ing, the oceans are acid­i­fy­ing, and hun­dreds of species go extinct every sin­gle day because of the greed of a few. Let’s not stand idly by and watch while so much beau­ty is plun­dered and destroyed!

There is no time to act but now. Come to Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp and send your own mes­sage to Copen­hagen!

climate actions — tar sands, Santas at City Airport, Carbon Trading Exchange camped, Santas at BT (updated)

Cli­mate Activists Tell Cana­da: Don’t Cop Out On COP 15!

On Mon­day 14th of Decem­ber, cam­paign­ers from the UK Tar Sands Net­work and Camp for Cli­mate Action protest­ed out­side Cana­da House in Lon­don and shut down Pall Mall Street in Trafal­gar Square to protest against Canada’s attempts to derail the cli­mate change nego­ti­a­tions in Copen­hagen.

Tar Sands London bannerCli­mate Activists Tell Cana­da: Don’t Cop Out On COP 15!

On Mon­day 14th of Decem­ber, cam­paign­ers from the UK Tar Sands Net­work and Camp for Cli­mate Action protest­ed out­side Cana­da House in Lon­don and shut down Pall Mall Street in Trafal­gar Square to protest against Canada’s attempts to derail the cli­mate change nego­ti­a­tions in Copen­hagen.

Cana­da is one of the biggest cur­rent stum­bling blocks to an ambi­tious and bind­ing cli­mate deal – because it con­tin­ues extract­ing oil from the most destruc­tive project on earth, the Tar Sands. [1] This protest will take place in sol­i­dar­i­ty with sim­i­lar protests in Copen­hagen itself and sev­er­al Cana­di­an cities.

The Tar Sands in Alber­ta, Cana­da, are one of the world’s most pol­lut­ing projects and are hav­ing a dev­as­tat­ing effect on the lives of Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties and fuelling glob­al cli­mate change. Cur­rent­ly in Copen­hagen, Cana­da is propos­ing an inad­e­quate tar­get for reduc­ing green­house emis­sions by only 3% by 2020 ignor­ing world sci­en­tists’ rec­om­men­da­tions to com­mit to over 40% reduc­tions below 1990 lev­els in order to avoid dan­ger­ous run­away cli­mate change. As a result, inter­na­tion­al crit­i­cism of Cana­da is mount­ing. Last week, a group of 11 Mem­bers of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment called on the lead­ers of BP, Shell, Sta­toil and Total com­pa­nies to halt pro­duc­tion of oil from the tar sands. [2]

“Cana­da has already spec­tac­u­lar­ly failed to meet its Kyoto Pro­to­col tar­gets and has shown no signs of chang­ing its pri­or­i­ties in Copen­hagen. Instead of mak­ing the nec­es­sary shift to a low car­bon econ­o­my, the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to approve new Tar Sands leas­es and is refus­ing to co-oper­ate with inter­na­tion­al efforts to mit­i­gate the impacts of cli­mate change. This affects the whole world,” says Suzanne Dhali­w­al of the UK Tar Sands Net­work, who will be at the Lon­don protest.

“The Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to ignore its own laws, which state they must con­sult with Indige­nous Peo­ples who have been try­ing to con­vey con­cerns about Tar Sands devel­op­ment. Tar Sands are killing our com­mu­ni­ties and tram­pling over our rights. Fur­ther­more, the envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion wreaked by the Tar Sands is direct­ly threat­en­ing thou­sands of lives now and is dri­ving our cli­mate into chaos. The world has wok­en up to the fact that Cana­da is now Pub­lic Cli­mate Ene­my Num­ber One. It’s time Cana­da did its glob­al duty and shut down the Tar Sands,” says Clay­ton Thomas-Muller, an Indige­nous activist with the Indige­nous Envi­ron­men­tal Net­work (IEN), who is par­tic­i­pat­ing in the par­al­lel Tar Sands protest in Copen­hagen.

UK cam­paign­ing against the Tar Sands, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with IEN, has focused on BP which plans to enter the Tar Sands through the mas­sive ‘Sun­rise Project’ and the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land, now 84% state-owned, which has invest­ed £8.3 bil­lion in the Tar Sands since 2007 accord­ing to new research by the Rain­for­est Action Net­work.

The “Canada:Don’t Cop out on COP” action will start in Trafal­gar Square, which has been occu­pied by the Camp for Cli­mate Action [3] for the dura­tion of the Copen­hagen nego­ti­a­tions as a base for UK based sol­i­dar­i­ty actions. Cam­paign­ers will then move onto Cana­da House to deliv­er their mes­sage to the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment.

[1] See the Indige­nous Envi­ron­men­tal Network’s Cana­di­an Indige­nous Tar Sands Cam­paign, www.ienearth.org/cits

[2] http://www.tarsandswatch.org/members-european-parliament-appeal-companies-stop-tar-sand-business

[3] The Camp for Cli­mate Action is a grow­ing grass-roots move­ment of diverse peo­ple tak­ing action on cli­mate change. http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/about

UK Tar Sands Net­work
tarsandsinfocus@googlemail.com
http://tarsandsinfocus.wordpress.com

Cli­mate Refugee San­tas in City Air­port Protest
Get the Train you Wankers placardMade Homeless banner
6 Decem­ber 2009
CLIMATE CAMP PRESS RELEASE:

REFUGEE SANTAS VS POLICE AT LONDON CITY AIRPORT

20 Cli­mate activists dressed as San­ta Claus were pushed out of Lon­don City Air­port depar­tures lounge today by police and secu­ri­ty guards. Presents of car­toon books about the prob­lems with car­bon trad­ing, car­bon ration books, and toy trains were left unde­liv­ered. These were meant for the pas­sen­gers on the final flight to Copen­hagen before the COP15 cli­mate talks begin.

The San­tas’ pho­tog­ra­ph­er was arrest­ed. The activists man­aged to pub­lish a pic­ture of the arrest on Twit­ter (1) along with anoth­er image of the San­tas in action (2)

The activists sang Cli­mate Change-themed Christ­mas car­ols, includ­ing “Silent Plight” and “God Rest We Mer­ry Car­bon Traders”, in the air­port lob­by.

A San­ta Claus said: “The hypocrisy of fly­ing to the Copen­hagen talks is unbe­liev­able. It just goes to show that for the politi­cians and cor­po­rate lob­by­ists in Copen­hagen, these talks are no more than busi­ness as usu­al.

“If gov­ern­ments agree a deal based on false solu­tions like car­bon trad­ing, I shall have to take direct action by get­ting stuck in a whole lot more chim­neys”

Video


Carbon Exchange

7th Decem­ber: 11.30am This morn­ing pro­test­ers from the Cli­mate Camp have block­ad­ed the entrance to the Euro­pean Cli­mate Exchange in Bish­ops­gate, Lon­don [see video].

The COP Out Camp Out at Trafal­gar Square was set up on Sat­ur­day after the mas­sive Wave cli­mate demon­stra­tion ahead of the Cop15 cli­mate con­fer­ence which starts today in Copen­hagen.

The Euro­pean Cli­mate Exchange in Bish­ops­gate was the tar­get and loca­tion of the Cli­mate Camp dur­ing the G20 protests back in April.

For updates see: http://twitter.com/climatecampldn
Video http://www.twitvid.com/19342


BT Santa die-in
San­ta vis­its BT and expos­es coal invest­ment
Novem­ber 30, 2009

This morn­ing a team of San­ta’s arrived at the BT offices in Bris­tol Tem­ple Quay to expose the truth behind the com­pa­nies pen­sion scheme. BT pen­sions are fund­ing coal min­ing in South Wales, where Merthyr Tyd­fil hosts one of Europe’s largest open­cast coal mines. BT Pen­sion Scheme owns a com­pa­ny called Her­mes who own Argent, of Miller-Argent fame — the com­pa­ny who oper­ate the mine. Staff pen­sion mon­ey is secret­ly being spent on coal min­ing.

No won­der it came as a sur­prise when San­ta came to vis­it…

Arriv­ing at the BT offices at Tem­ple Quay in Bris­tol this morn­ing, San­ta Claus came to say a great big fes­tive NO to coal.

San­ta and his helpers descend­ed upon offices after find­ing out that BT pen­sion schemes are pay­ing for the mas­sive min­ing oper­a­tion at Ffos-y-Fran near Merthyr Tyd­fil in South Wales — one of Europe’s largest open cast coal mines. The mys­tery peo­ple in red say they are rais­ing the issue with BT work­ers, let­ting them know where their pen­sion mon­ey is being invest­ed.

The bemused staff seemed hap­py to be greet­ed by the singing san­tas as they arrived for work, but looked con­cerned with the news of their employ­ers dirty invest­ments.

A jovial woman clutch­ing a hand­ful of Christ­mas cards said “with the cli­mate talks in Copen­hagen com­ing up, the world’s eyes will be on politi­cians strug­gling to come to terms with the threat of cli­mate change.

We want the employ­ees to know that their mon­ey is being invest­ed in coal min­ing in Wales, wors­en­ing the effects of cli­mate change. It is up to them to hold BT account­able for their actions”

The Ffos-y-Fran mine is less than 40 metres from the near­est homes and res­i­dents lives are blight­ed with noise, dust and pol­lu­tion. Merthyr Tyd­fil was the site of the Cli­mate Camp in Wales ear­li­er this year, sup­port­ing local res­i­dents who have been fight­ing against the min­ing oper­a­tions.

San­ta and his helpers hand­ed out Christ­mas cards and sung car­ols to peo­ple as they arrived for work today, explain­ing why they have come to vis­it.

“Coal is the most cli­mate wreck­ing way to pro­duce ener­gy. Real­ly, if we want to stop the worst effects of cli­mate change we need to stop dig­ging it out of the ground and invest in green tech­nolo­gies instead”

“I’m here because I’m seri­ous­ly wor­ried about my home back in the Arc­tic” said Sam, one of the Santa’s. “With pre­dict­ed tem­per­a­ture ris­es, we’ll become refugees and the rein­deer are noto­ri­ous­ly fussy about where they live”.

Email — info@climatecampcymru.org

Notes:

· BT are linked to coal in the fol­low­ing way-BT own BT Pen­sion Scheme (BTPS) who in turn own a com­pa­ny called Her­mes who admin­is­ter the BT pen­sion fund. Her­mes bought the devel­op­ment group Argent (of Miller-Argent) who run the mine at Merthyr Tyd­fil.

· Ffos-y-Fran, locat­ed next to Merthyr Tyd­fil, is one of the biggest coal mines Wales has ever seen. Over the 15 year life­time of this new open­cast mine, more than 10.8 mil­lion tonnes of coal will be extract­ed. Burn­ing this will release 30 mil­lion tonnes of car­bon diox­ide into the atmos­phere – at the same rate each year as the entire coun­try of Mozam­bique!

· Local peo­ple have been oppos­ing the mine for years. More than 10,000 peo­ple signed a peti­tion oppos­ing the mine. Despite this amaz­ing lev­el of oppo­si­tion, the Welsh Assem­bly Gov­ern­ment, encour­aged by West­min­ster, gave the go-ahead to the mine.

· Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru is Wales’ Camp for Cli­mate Action – inspired by the Cli­mate Camp move­ment tak­ing action on cli­mate change in the UK and world­wide. The Camp is com­mit­ted to edu­ca­tion, sus­tain­able liv­ing and sup­port­ing direct action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change.

· Coal is the dirt­i­est fos­sil fuel there is – respon­si­ble for 50% of the CO2 added to the atmos­phere since the begin­ning of the indus­tri­al rev­o­lu­tion, and 40% of CO2 emis­sions glob­al­ly. Enough of it remains in the ground, if burned, to take us to a sub­stan­tial­ly dif­fer­ent plan­et from the one we know today — and which has exist­ed through­out all of human his­to­ry.

http://www.climatecampcymru.org

Minorca Opencast Protest Group

The Minor­ca Open­cast Protest Group has been formed to oppose plans already sub­mit­ted by UK Coal plc for an Open­cast Coal Mine between Measham and Swep­stone in Leices­ter­shire, Eng­land. The appli­ca­tion was sub­mit­ted in July 2009, but has yet to be decid­ed on by Leices­ter­shire Coun­ty Coun­cil (as at 7/12/09).

Minorca Opencast Protest Group logoThe Minor­ca Open­cast Protest Group has been formed to oppose plans already sub­mit­ted by UK Coal plc for an Open­cast Coal Mine between Measham and Swep­stone in Leices­ter­shire, Eng­land. The appli­ca­tion was sub­mit­ted in July 2009, but has yet to be decid­ed on by Leices­ter­shire Coun­ty Coun­cil (as at 7/12/09).

You can find out more about our cam­paign by log­ging on to:

http://www.leicestershirevillages.com/measham/minorca-protest.html or http://mopg.co.uk/

Climate Camp sets up at Trafalgar Square

Update: The Camp will hold the space for the entire con­fer­ence, reclaim­ing one the busiest loca­tions in the world to push for gen­uine solu­tions to cli­mate change. So, if you’re not off to Copen­hagen then this is the place you need to be. Bring your tent, warm clothes, and ideas for action!

Decem­ber 05, 2009

with­in the first hour of occu­pa­tion, around 250 sup­port­ers arrived in the square and 20 tents estab­lished. many more are on their way. there are 2 giant manned tripods with the ‘cap­i­tal­ism is cri­sis’ ban­ner fly­ing between them. a yurt has been erect­ed as well as var­i­ous oth­er shel­ters, a kitchen, and stor­age area. the first wood fires are alight, and the mood is excit­ed and opti­mistic despite the damp con­di­tions. there’s a sound sys­tem for announce­ments and music, and the ‘rinky dinky’ sys­tem is mak­ing it’s way up from par­lia­ment square too.

climate camp in Trafalgar SquareUpdate: The Camp will hold the space for the entire con­fer­ence, reclaim­ing one the busiest loca­tions in the world to push for gen­uine solu­tions to cli­mate change. So, if you’re not off to Copen­hagen then this is the place you need to be. Bring your tent, warm clothes, and ideas for action!

Decem­ber 05, 2009

with­in the first hour of occu­pa­tion, around 250 sup­port­ers arrived in the square and 20 tents estab­lished. many more are on their way. there are 2 giant manned tripods with the ‘cap­i­tal­ism is cri­sis’ ban­ner fly­ing between them. a yurt has been erect­ed as well as var­i­ous oth­er shel­ters, a kitchen, and stor­age area. the first wood fires are alight, and the mood is excit­ed and opti­mistic despite the damp con­di­tions. there’s a sound sys­tem for announce­ments and music, and the ‘rinky dinky’ sys­tem is mak­ing it’s way up from par­lia­ment square too.

there is a full two days of work­shops and oth­er activ­i­ties planned, and vis­i­tors are wel­come to the square to find out what the issues and pos­si­ble solu­tions are.

Time­line

Groups cycled to Lon­don, stop­ping off spread­ing aware­ness about cli­mate change, such as Cli­mate Chains who came down from Leeds & else­where (more info here too)

What to bring
Sim­ple. Just a tent, warm and water­proof clothes. Oh, and all your friends!

Wish list
Veg­an food, blan­kets, tarps, pal­lets, party/frame tents, card­board,
ban­ners, big water bot­tles + any­thing else you think may be help­ful…

Press release:

Hun­dreds of cli­mate activists have set up a Cli­mate Camp at Trafal­gar Square in the run up to the COP15 talks in Copen­hagen next week.(1)

The ‘COP out, Camp out’, organ­ised by a group of peo­ple who met at the Camp for Cli­mate Action in Black­heath this sum­mer (2), is tak­ing place after thou­sands of peo­ple marched through the cap­i­tal as part of ‘The Wave.’(3)

Tra­cy Wor­thy from the Camp for Cli­mate Action said: “We are here with the Par­lia­ment in view to high­light that the elit­ist and unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic talks in Copen­hagen are part of a polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic sys­tem that puts cor­po­rate prof­its before the needs of peo­ple. We need sys­tem change, not cli­mate change.”

“The false solu­tions being pushed in Copen­hagen, such as car­bon trad­ing, will not solve the cli­mate cri­sis. For the bankers, cor­po­ra­tions and politi­cians who brought us the finan­cial cri­sis, Copen­hagen is no more than busi­ness as usual.”(4)

The loca­tion of the camp was kept secret until the last minute, when the tar­get was announced through mass text-mes­sag­ing. The activists met up at Jubilee Gar­dens (out­side the Shell Build­ing) and marched on to Trafal­gar Square. Tra­cy Wor­thy com­ment­ed, “The camp will be a space for peo­ple to get inspired and pre­pared for tak­ing action dur­ing the COP15 talks.”

END

Con­tact: 07040 900 905
Pho­tos: 07909 020 847
press[@]climatecamp.org.uk