Copenhagen, Dec 17- Flaming barricades were erected and rocks and molotov cocktails thrown to preventing riot police from advancing into the autonomous Christiana neighborhood in Copenhagen on Monday night.

After a long day of demonstrations against the Canadian Tar Sands and capitalism as the cause of climate change, an evening party was held in Christiana, which has been a squatted and autonomous neighborhood in Copenhagen for about forty years.  Riot police cut off all exits to the neighborhood, deployed tear gas, and made about 200 arrests once inside.  The arrests bring the total number related to the week’s protests to about 1,500.

source: http://denverabc.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/copenhagen-police-raid-autonomous-neighborhood/

Copenhagen, Dec 9- Fifty young Americans took over a climate denier conference hosted by a prominent conservative organization in Copenhagen, rushing the stage and telling the live TV audience that a clean energy future is the real road to prosperity in America. The young people, merely a fraction of the more than 350 US youth in Denmark for the UN climate negotiations, entered a session of the Americans for Prosperity “Hot Air Tour” speakers series and were able to drop two banners and gain access to the conference’s stage. The live event was webcast to over forty climate denier rallies in cities across the United States.

source: http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2009/12/09/us-youth-crash-climate-denier-live-webcast-in-copenhagen/

Photo by Bob Strong/Reuters.

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] No, it’s a waste of time. And if the leaders of countries cannot arrive in an agreement, why don’t the peoples then decide together?

View VIDEO on Democracy Now!

source: http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/17/bolivian_president_evo_morales_on_climate

Activists from Climate Camp Cymru blockaded a biomass plant in Port Talbot and hung banners from chimneys in protest of plans to produce electricity from imported woodchips. The plant is the first of its kind in the UK, and is serving as a test site in anticipation of building larger plants, including what would be the world’s largest  biomass plant nearby.

Melissa Harvey explains, “Burning wood is called carbon neutral but this is a myth. It’s hard to believe but burning wood for electricity is even dirtier than coal. It releases one and half as much carbon dioxide as burning coal, and the other pollution affecting air quality is nearly as bad as coal…. Catastrophic climate change could be unstoppable in as little as 10 years. This is our last window of opportunity. False solutions such as biomass and carbon trading mean we’ll have no chance at all. And when we talk about catastrophic climate change, we’re not talking hot summers, we’re talking about the question of survival.”

source: http://tv.oneworld.net/2009/11/30/arrests-at-biomass-plant-in-south-wales/

Washington, DC Dec 18- Members of the DC Climate Action Factory disrupted DC headquarters of agribusiness conglomerate Monsanto in protest of their intensive lobbying efforts to promote false solutions to climate change. Monsanto’s chief effort in this ignominious campaign is their promotion of their proprietary GMO biofuel monoculture empire as a form of “green energy”.

source: http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2009/12/18/monsanto-refuses-angry-mermaid-award-in-dc/

Led by two members of the official Bolivian delegation to COP15, 100 delegates from NGOs, including dozens of representatives from global south and indigenous groups, were beaten by Copenhagen police when they attempted to leave the Bella center and join the Peoples’ Assembly at the Reclaim Power protest outside. The Peoples’ Assembly was an attempt to protest the unjust and undemocratic principles that underlie the COP15 process by creating a forum that privileges voices from the and other groups that have been marginalized.

When the delegates reached police lines outside the Bella center within a few 100 meters of the Peoples’ Assembly, they were blocked from continuing to the assembly. Rather than go around police lines, some of the delegates linked arms and attempted to non-violently march through police lines, but were beaten back by Danish police wielding batons.

Source: http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2009/12/16/police-beat-delegates-trying-to-join-protest-outside-cop-15/#more-15439

Last night UK activist group Climate Camp demanded real solutions to
climate change while occupying corporately sponsored “Hopenhagen” at the
Cop15. Activists set up tents, held signs, and danced to stay warm for six
hours in sub-freezing conditions Thursday night in the heart of downtown
Copenhagen. One banner read, “Caution: Corporate Greenwashing!” Climate
Camp exposed the corporate “green-washing” that is being advertised and
sold to the world as solutions to the global climate crisis. Hopenhagen is
a blatant example of corporations trying to profit from climate change.
Climate change is a serious issue and should not be reduced a marketing
scheme. It is bad form to attempt to profit from this situation which is
affecting the livelihoods of millions of people. This action was held in
solidarity with Climate Camp activists who were simultaneously occupying
Trafalgar Square in London.

Earlier that day UK global justice group Egality dropped a 8×5 meter
banner over one of Hopenhagens largest billboards.”What we need is real
political power not ‘hope’! We wont go on a rant but the best
“sub-vertising” we’ve seen so far was renaming this place ‘Shopenhagen’,
said Egality’s spokespeople.

Greenpeace Activists place Climate Crime Banners on the exterior of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Building in Washington

Climate Talks Held Hostage

Greenpeace Rescue Unit on Scene!    December 17, 2009

WASHINGTON, D.C., United States — Greenpeace activists and emergency vehicles descend on the Chamber of Commerce in response to a climate emergency.

This global warming crime scene was quickly taped off by Greenpeace activists as a hostage negotiator attempted to make contact with the group. Tension mounted as the negotiator and activists attempted to convince the Chamber to “put down the coal, step away from the climate talks, and set the world free.”

The Greenpeace climate crime unit intervened at the scene of the crime, confronting the lobbyists who work for the very industries who create and profit from criminal climate destruction.

source: http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/press-center/releases2/greenpeace-emergency-response

Photo: Mark Malijan.

In Copenhagen, thousands of protesters marched toward the UN climate summit on Wednesday with the stated goal of transforming the talks into a People’s Assembly and to call for climate justice. Police made over 200 arrests. Meanwhile, inside the Bella Center, hundreds of people staged a walkout to try and meet the marchers outside but were met with a heavy police response.

View VIDEO on Democracy Now!

COPENHAGEN, Denmark – “Canada is ‘red-faced’!” (Globe and Mail) “Copenhagen spoof shames Canada!” (Guardian) “Hoax slices through Canadian spin on warming!” (The Toronto Star) “A childish prank!” (Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada)

What at first looked like the flip-flop of the century has been revealed as a sophisticated ruse by a coalition of African, North American, and European activists. The purpose: to highlight the most powerful nations’ obstruction of meaningful progress in Copenhagen, to push for just climate debt reparations, and to call out Canada in particular for its terrible climate policy.

The elaborate intercontinental operation was spearheaded by a group of concerned Canadian citizens, the “Climate Debt Agents” from ActionAid, and The Yes Men. It involved the creation of a best-case scenario in which Canadian government representatives unleashed a bold new initiative to curb emissions and spearhead a “Climate Debt Mechanism” for the developing world.

The ruse started at 2:00 PM Monday, when journalists around the world were surprised to receive a press release from “Environment Canada” (enviro-canada.ca, a copy of ec.gc.ca) that claimed Canada was reversing its position on climate change.

In the release, Canada’s Environment Minister, Jim Prentice, waxed lyrical. “Canada is taking the long view on the world economy,” said Prentice. “Nobody benefits from a world in peril. Contributing to the development of other nations and taking full responsibilities for our emissions is simple Canadian good sense.”

Thirty minutes later, the same “Environment Canada” sent out another press release, congratulating itself on Uganda’s excited response to the earlier fake announcement. A video featuring an impassioned response by “Margaret Matembe,” supposedly a COP15 delegate from Uganda, was embedded in a fake COP15 website. “Canada, until now you have blocked climate negotiations and refused to reduce emissions,” said “Matembe.” “Of course, you do sit on the world’s second-largest oil reserve. But for us it isn’t a mere economic issue – it’s about drought, famine, and disease.”

(The video was shot in a replica of the Bella Center’s briefing room, at Frederiksholms Kanal 4, in the center of Copenhagen. Matembe was actually Kodili Chandia, a “Climate Debt Agent” from ActionAid, a collective of activists that push for rich countries to help those most affected by climate change for adaptation and mitigation projects. The “Climate Debt Agents,” with their signature bright red suits, have been a ubiquitous presence in Copenhagen during the climate summit.)

Then it was time for Canada to react. One hour later, another “Environment Canada” (this one at ec-gc.ca) released a bombastic response to the original release. This one quoted Jim Prentice, Canada’s Minister for the Environment, decrying the original announcement: “It is the height of cruelty, hypocrisy, and immorality to infuse with false hopes the spirit of people who are already, and will additionally, bear the brunt of climate change’s terrible human effects. Canada deplores this moral misfire.”

Because almost none of the resulting news coverage even mentioned Uganda or “Matembe’s” response, a fourth release was sent from the second website (ec-gc.ca).

Meanwhile, in the real world

The real Canadian government’s reactions were almost as strange as the fake ones in the release. Dimitri Soudas, a spokesperson for the Canadian Prime Minister, emailed reporters and blamed Steven Guilbeault, cofounder of Quebec-based Equiterre. “More time should be dedicated to playing a constructive role instead of childish pranks,” said Soudas in a first email, while misspelling Guilbeault’s name.

Guilbeault demanded an apology. “A better way to use his time would probably be to advise the Canadian government to change its deeply flawed position on climate,” said Guilbeault. Soudas and Guilbeault were seen exchanging angry words in the hallway outside of Canada’s 3:30pm press conference, which did not start until 4:30pm, and at which the Canadians refused to answer any questions about the flurry of false releases.

(Update: Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff has called for Soudas’s dismissal over the incident.)

More raised voices were heard when Stephen Chu, the US Secretary of Energy, refused to pose for a photo with his Canadian counterpart, Jim Prentice. After Steve Kelly, Prentice’s chief of staff, begged for 10 minutes, the US guy finally asked why a photo was so important. Kelly replied that “we were carpetbagged this morning by [environmental non-governmental organizations] with a false press release. I gotta change the story.”

Why Blame Canada?

The only country in the world to have abandoned the Kyoto Protocol’s emissions and climate debt targets, Canada also has the most energy-intensive, destructive and polluting oil reserves in the world. The Alberta tar sands, according to The Economist, are in fact the world’s biggest single industrial source of carbon emissions.

“By not agreeing to emissions reductions, Canada is holding a loaded gun to our heads, and seems ready to pull the trigger on millions of us around the globe, ” said Margaret Matembe aka Kodili Chandia of the “Climate Debt Agents.” “They leave us no choice but to see them as criminal.”

At last year’s climate summit in Poznan, Poland, over 400 civil society organizations voted Canada worst of all nations in blocking progress towards a binding climate treaty. Will Canada take the dubious prize again this year in Copenhagen?

“The Canadian government is not listening to its citizens,” says Sarah Ramsey, a resident of Alberta who has seen the destruction of the tar sands firsthand. Ramsey traveled to Copenhagen to give voice to a generation of young Canadians. “We are discouraged and demoralized by our government’s position on climate change. We decided to lend our government a hand, and show them what good leadership looks like.”

In solidarity with the delegates from the G77 Bloc of nations, today’s intervention was also meant to highlight an issue at the heart of the ongoing talks—the issue of climate justice, and the climate debt that the developed world owes the developing world. Seventy-five percent of the historical emissions that created the climate crisis came from 20% of the world’s population in developed countries, according to the UN, yet up to 80% of the impacts of the climate crisis are experienced in the developing world, according to the World Bank.

“I meant every word I said,” says Kodili Chandia, a spokesperson for the Climate Debt Agents, who spoke out as a member of the Ugandan delegation. “This debate isn’t just about facts and figures and abstract concepts of fairness—the drought we are seeing right now in East Africa is directly threatening the lives of millions of people, including farmers in my own family. We have not created this problem but we are living with the consequences. That’s why I still say: It’s time for rich countries to pay their climate debt.”

From  The Yes Men