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Protesters Gather to Urge Action on Climate Change
by Tom Zeller, New York Times
December 12th, 2009
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Tibetan
flags are seen in the foreground as tens of thousands demonstrators
take part in a march leaving parliament, seen in rear, in the center of
Copenhagen Saturday Dec. 12, 2009. Large crowds are expected to turn
out for a demonstration from the city center to bella center, the
conference venue where the largest and most important U.N. climate
change conference is underway aiming to secure an agreement on how to
protect the world from calamitous global warming. (AP Photo/Peter
Dejong)
COPENHAGEN - Thousands of protesters from
around the globe converged in a square here Saturday for what was
expected to be the largest demonstration during two weeks of talks on a
global strategy to combat climate change.
The police said they
anticipated that 60,000 people would join a long march southward from
Christiansborg Slotsplads, or Castle Square, toward the Bella Center,
the sprawling and heavily fortified convention center where delegates
and observers from nearly 200 nations are gathered to try to seek a
consensus.
A coalition of hundreds of environmental groups,
human rights campaigners, climate activists, anti-capitalists and
freelance protesters from dozens of countries — along with Copenhagen
residents, young and old — gathered in the early afternoon for a
veritable circus of eco-themed signs, chants, speeches and costumes.
By
1 p.m., a rolling sea of flags and banners undulated across the square,
most with climate slogans or pleas for world leaders to resolve the
vast differences that still make a global climate agreement elusive as
talks here move into the second and final week.
“Bla, Bla, Bla,” said one popular sign. “Act Now!”
Another said, “Nature Doesn’t Compromise.”
Bob Strong/Reuters
On
a stage at the eastern edge of the square, a succession of speakers
stoked a cheering crowd, their voices booming over loudspeakers. “My
words cannot replace action,” said Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the leader
of Denmark’s Social Democrats, the leading opposition party here. “We
are here to show leaders that what is made by man, can be changed by
man.”
In the crowd was 26-year-old Jemimah Maitei, dressed in
traditional clothing from her native Kenya. Watching the stage eagerly,
she said she had traveled to Copenhagen to be part of a delegation
representing indigenous peoples at the talks, which are overseen by the
United Nations.
“I came here to give my views on how climate
change is impacting my community,” Ms. Maitei said. She cited
relentless droughts that had made growing crops, among other things,
increasingly difficult for the Masai, the ethnic group to which she
belongs.
The vast demonstration was not the exclusive province
of climate campaigners, however. Groups of diverse social and political
pedigree took advantage of the huge gathering to advance their agendas,
too.
One sign urged the overthrow of the Iranian government.
Another, with the words “Earth in Need: Delete Meat,” was one of many
promoting vegetarian diets.
People calling for a “Free Tibet”
were well represented, and a small contingent of climate skeptics and
libertarians opposed to caps on heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions
derided the United Nations talks.
“We want to be able to live
our lives like we’ve always led them before — as free citizens in free
democracies,” said David Pontoppidan, a graduate student in sociology
at the University of Copenhagen, who addressed passers-by through a
megaphone over the chatter of two helicopters hovering far above.
“We want free debate; we want to be able to be taken seriously even though we don’t agree with the U.N.,” he said.
By
midafternoon, as people made their way over the canal and southward
toward the Bella Center, small bands of black-clad youths chanting
anti-capitalist slogans and carrying sticks and rocks could be seen
infiltrating the otherwise peaceful crowd.
At around 3:30,
dozens of Danish police officers penetrated the parade near its tail,
surrounding a group of the more radical protesters. Several arrests
were made, while the remainder of the column of demonstrators was
guided around the scene to rejoin those making their way for the
demonstration’s terminus at Vejlands Alle, just north of the convention
center.
Although there have been scattered skirmishes between
the police and protesters during the first week of the United Nations
conference, most of these have been isolated, and Danish law
enforcement officials have made it broadly known that they would have
low tolerance for unruly behavior.
Jesper Frandsen, a police
officer keeping watch at an area behind the stage at the outset of the
demonstration, said the police force wanted to ensure that visitors
enjoyed themselves and that their environmental concerns were heard.
“We want to keep the focus on the environmental debate and make sure the radical activists don’t steal the attention,” he said.
Leading
the march from the square this afternoon, a man in blue coveralls, with
vaudevillian face paint and a faux Cyrano nose, could be seen sweeping
the street and peering into a rolling trash bin painted to resemble the
planet. It emitted plumes of white dust and mournful musical notes.
“This
is our comment on global warming,” said the sweeper, Jens Kloft, a
Danish performance artist. “We want to have an international compromise
on global warming — a better climate, but two more months of summer in
Denmark please. Because it’s too cold to be out here.”
Andrew C. Revkin and Lars Kroldrup contributed reporting. |
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