Updates from the UN Climate Change Conference
Dec. 7-18, 2009 – Copenhagen, Denmark

Come Out Friday, 12/18 4:30-6 Vigil at San Francisco Danish Consulate

EMERGENCY PROTEST & VIGIL
SOLIDARITY WITH ACTIVISTS IN COPENHAGEN

* CLIMATE TALKS UNDEMOCRATIC & ON VERGE OF FAILURE
* US/RICH COUNTRIES REFUSE SERIOUS REDUCTIONS & CLIMATE DEBT
* MASSIVE POLICE REPRESSION AGAINST NONVIOLENT CIVIL SOCIETY

WHEN: Friday December 18th 4:30-6:00PM
WHERE: Danish Consulate, 1 California St, at Market St. (Embarcadero BART),
San Francisco. Bring candles and friends.

By JAMES KANTER and TOM ZELLER Jr.

COPENHAGEN — Perhaps the strangest sight at protests that turned violent here on Wednesday was a group of young men and women in fur coats and white bow ties who came bearing Champagne, fistfuls of dollar bills and grapes on a silver platter.

OAKLAND has an amazing opportunity to be a worldwide leader in equitable climate action.

With crucial international climate talks in Copenhagen set for December, the Oakland Climate Action Coalition is showing how strong climate policy can build a safe, economically vibrant, and socially just city.

In our everyday lives, we are already feeling the impacts of climate change and our dangerous dependence on fossil fuels. Gasoline and utility bills continue to rise with no end in sight. Turbulent and unpredictable weather patterns threaten valuable food crops, raising prices at the grocery store.

by Adam Welz Lumumba Di-Aping speaks passionately during climate talks at the African civil society meeting at Bella Center, Copenhagen, on Dec. 8. – Photo: ©Adam Welz Copenhagen, Tuesday, Dec. 8 – The leak of a so-called “Danish text” that would sideline the U.N. in future climate deals is reverberating around the Copenhagen negotiations.

Today I witnessed an unexpected and extraordinary outburst of candor from one of the key players in these negotiations – Lumumba Di-Aping, Sudanese by birth and chief negotiator of the so-called G77 bloc, which mostly consists of poor countries.

I attended an ad-hoc meeting in the Bella Center attended by about 100 African representatives of civil society and a few African parliamentarians – among them Lance Greyling, an member of Parliament from South Africa – this afternoon. The meeting was called at short notice and its agenda was not announced.

After a few minutes of introductions Di-Aping was given the floor to speak to fellow Africans. Requests were made by organizers to turn off all microphones so as not to record what was going to be said, although Di-Aping made a point of turning his on, saying half-jokingly, “They are probably listening anyway.”

Reflections on my 1st full day at the Global Climate Summit
by Mari Rose Taruc
12/12/09

The early winter cold of Copenhagen turns my face into a popsicle, but all I had to do was join the “Flood for Climate Justice” march of a hundred thousand energetic people from around the world to feel warm. A 4 mile, 4+ hour mobilization is enough to keep anyone from freezing. Signs of hope/despair: “There is no planet B,” “Nature doesn’t compromise,” to “systems change, not climate change.”

U.S. Groups Release Climate Justice and Immigrant Rights Statement Calling for Human Rights Protection of Communities Displaced by Climate Change

(Washington, DC)  Organizations around the country released a national statement in conjunction with the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen this week, calling for increased attention and awareness to forced displacement caused by climate change, for the protection of the rights of these displaced communities, for legal and financial assistance directly to climate refugees, and for an immediate reduction of carbon emissions.  It asserts that while as many as 50 million people have already been displaced by climate change, this number could rise to as much as 150 million by 2050.  The statement also condemns government policies and corporate practices that directly lead to climate change and that adversely impact the displacement of communities around the world.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 7, 2009 Copenhagen, Denmark - A multi-generational delegation of 21 Indigenous Peoples from North America have arrived in Copenhagen, Denmark this week to advocate for the incorporation of Indigenous Peoples rights in the language of a fair, binding, and science-based global climate treaty at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

For Immediate Release

Thousands of people from across the United States who see the impacts of climate change in their communities are flying to Copenhagen for the United Nations climate conference set to open December 7. They are building alliances with citizens and governments from across the developing world to press for global warming solutions deeper than the market-based carbon trading schemes that dominate the news. Race, Poverty & the Environment (RP&E), the national journal for social and environmental justice, is bringing their stories, their voices and a host of background material to reporters, editors and activists at its new climate justice web portal, www.urbanhabitat.org/climatejustice.

Editorial calling for action from world leaders on climate change is published today by 56 newspapers around the world in 20 languages

Today 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.

Climate Countdown: Largest Climate Summit in World History Opens in Copenhagen Democracy Now! broadcasts live from Copenhagen from inside the Bella Center, where thousands of delegates from over 190 countries are gathering for the largest climate summit in history. Over the next two weeks, 100 world leaders are expected to attend the UN conference that has been described by some scientists as the most important the world has ever seen. We play highlights from the opening ceremony with the mayor of Copenhagen, Ritt Bjerregaard; Rajendra Pachauri, the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; and Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, speaking on Sunday.