Pressure for climate deal hots up as deadline looms
Determined-looking demonstrators hold their hands in the air as they are arrested by Danish riot police in the centre of Copenhagen yesterday
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Monday December 14 2009
Environment ministers tried to overcome rifts between rich and poor nations in Copenhagen yesterday, with the deadline for a climate deal looming.
Church leaders handed a petition with 500,000 signatures to the UN and prayed for climate justice, while hundreds of demonstrators marched for a second day to remind world leaders of the huge public pressure for a successful deal.
"We are telling them: 'Hey you, you who are sitting there making the decisions, the world is waiting for a real agreement,'" South African Nobel Peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu said during a speech in the city centre, also attended by Ireland's former president Mary Robinson.
Arrested
Meanwhile, on a second day of mass protests yesterday, 250 activists were arrested.
Coming the day after a huge demonstration flared into violence and prompted the largest mass arrest in Danish history, police shut down a small march which they said had not been authorised, detaining almost all who had joined it for disturbing the peace.
More than 90 ministers had met informally, on their day off from official negotiations between 190 nations, to try to break an impasse over who is responsible for emissions cuts, how deep they should be, and who should pay for them.
Coming out of the talks, Britain's Energy Minister Ed Miliband said the atmosphere had been positive but the differences had not been resolved.
"Everyone realises the urgency of what we are undertaking but we need to move faster," he told journalists.
"We need to overcome the major issues like reducing emissions, and the finance that is required and the transparency of commitment."
Countries like China and India have insisted that the industrialised world must make bigger cuts in emissions and help poor nations to fund a shift to greener growth and adapt to a warmer world.
Richer countries say the developing world's carbon emissions are growing so fast it must sign up for curbs in emissions to prevent dangerous levels of warming.
The climate talks will culminate in a two-day summit on Thursday and Friday, which US President Barack Obama will attend, adding to the pressure on negotiators to reach a deal.
"My understanding is that the leaders are coming to celebrate the good outcome of the talks," said senior Chinese envoy Su Wei.
The head of the Asian Development Bank, Haruhiko Kuroda, warned governments that a failure to reach a climate deal in Copenhagen could lead to a collapse of the carbon market, which would hit efforts to deal with the climate change crisis.
Archbishop Tutu handed over a statement with half a million signatures from around the world, calling for a "fair, effective and binding climate deal that puts the needs of the poor first", to Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat.
Mr de Boer told the crowd he hoped public pressure could persuade leaders to set aside their concerns about the global economic crisis and tackle the urgent threat of climate change.
"You know that it is a moral crisis that is standing in the way of us addressing an environmental crisis," he said.
Courage
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, called for political courage at an afternoon service in Copenhagen's cathedral, attended by Danish royalty, which was followed by a "bell ringing for the climate" in churches around the world.
"We have not yet been able to embrace the cost of the decisions we know we must make . . . but we have an obligation to future generations," Dr Williams told the congregation.
Meanwhile, police said they had released all but 13 of nearly 1,000 people detained after a march on Saturday.
The demonstration by tens of thousands of people was largely peaceful but violence erupted towards evening when demonstrators smashed windows and set fire to cars.
- Alister Doyle and Anna Ringstrom in Copenhagen
Irish Independent
