Today, 100 delegates from the Copenhagen climate talks – mostly from NGOs, but led by two members of the Bolivian government delegation, and with dozens of members of organizations from the Global South and Indigenous groups – marched out of the Copenhagen climate talks and tried to join the People’s Assembly at the Reclaim Power protest outside, only to be blocked and severely beaten by Danish police (who were working closely together with UN security).

The police cracked down incredibly hard on the Reclaim Power protest today – both inside and outside the Bella Center – and arrested 240 people (on top of the over 1,000 that they’ve arrested in the past week), but they didn’t prevent the protest from being an incredibly powerful and formative moment in the global movement for climate justice.

The Reclaim Power protest was co-organized by Climate Justice Now! and Climate Justice Action, two international networks of people’s movements, Indigenous groups, and grassroots activists from around the world – including Via Campesina, Indigenous Environmental Network, Focus on the Global South, Kalikasan-People’s Network for the Environment. The action sought to subvert the undemocratic and unjust UN COP process by creating a People’s Assembly, which would privilege the voices for climate justice of Indigenous peoples and people from the Global South – those groups that have been most marginalized from the COP-15 talks.

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Written by Jennifer Krill and Adrian Wilson. Cross-posted from It’s Getting Hot in Here.

Whispers in the hallways at the COP-15 Copenhagen climate negotiations emerged as a full blown controversy yesterday, when the UK Guardian published leaked text that was written by a secret group of negotiators, the so-called ‘Circle of Commitment’.  The U.S., UK, Denmark and other rich countries are apparently responsible for the text, which was written in secrecy in a dirty backroom deal. The Danish Text, as it’s being called here in Copenhagen, utterly excludes the U.N. process, especially cutting out the developing countries that are pushing for a strong, legally binding deal, with targets of 40-45% emissions reductions below 1990 levels in order to avert the risk of catastrophic climate change.

By contrast, the leaked text effectively kills the Kyoto Protocol and its emphasis on compliance and binding targets, while gutting much of the negotiations that have been underway over the last two years. Here’s a short summary of a few of the problems with the leaked text:

• The Danish Text repeatedly refers to “the shared vision limiting global average temperature rise to a maximum of 2 degrees [Celsius] above pre-industrial levels.” This vision is certainly not shared - as the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance stated yesterday, “according to the IPCC a two degree increase in the global mean temperature will mean a three or more degree increase for temperatures in Africa, [causing] 50% reduction in crop yields in some areas.”
• The text also specifies that “developed country parties commit to deliver upfront public financing for 2010-201[2] corresponding on average to [10] billion USD annually for early action, capacity building, technology and strengthening adaptation and mitigation readiness in developing countries.” While this figure is still bracketed, the idea that the Global North is considering initially giving only $10 billion per year in mitigation funding to the Global South is viewed by many G-77 nations as a slap in the face – especially given that the governments of the Global North have spent over $4 trillion in the past two years on economic stimulus and bailouts of the banking and auto industries. (NOTE: In negotiating text, the brackets refer to sections that are still in negotiation.)
• In one of the most controversial sections, the draft specifies that ”a Climate Fund be established as an operating entity of the Financial Mechanism of the Convention. … Support from the Fund may be channeled through multilateral institutions.” This is a key point that has been denounced by much of the Global South: this plan would take trillions of dollars in climate funding out of the hands of the U.N., and put it in the hands of multilateral institutions like the World Bank – which are effectively controlled by the U.S. and Europe.
• The REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) outline in the text allows intact, natural forests to be replaced by tree plantations and includes poor provisions for monitoring, reporting and no verification at all.
• Indigenous peoples – whose rights the U.S. is famously reluctant to respect, as one of four countries in the world to refuse to sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – are not even mentioned in the Danish Text. The unique rights of Indigenous peoples, and indeed human rights or climate justice in general, are not  part of this backroom deal. More »

Cross posted from Grist

African negotiators at the U.N. climate talks in Barcelona just refused to continue formal discussions about all other issues until wealthy countries live up to their legal and moral responsibility to commit to deep emissions reductions. Rich countries (also called “Annex 1 countries”) have ground negotiations to a halt by failing to agree their new targets under the Kyoto Protocol (KP), driving developing countries to put their feet down. This walkout is significant and opens up political space – it means many of the countries in Africa just stopped one half of the UN climate negotiation process until rich countries say how much they will reduce their carbon.

We’re down to the wire: just four negotiating days left before the big agreement in Copenhagen is supposed to go down. Its day one, and we saw just a taste of the breakdowns to come. While rich countries continue to undermine commitments for the Kyoto Protocol (one of two negotiating tracks for Copenhagen which is supposed to be renewed for a second commitment period of Annex 1 targets), the spin has already taken hold: they’re blaming Africa for their own delay-mongering. Oy vey.

In response, movement and civil society organizations held a demonstration at the U.N. building in support of African delegates’ insistence that developed countries commit to new, strong binding targets. Delegates and observers were invited to join a human shield against the killing of Kyoto targets (complete with an Annex 1 grim reaper) and instead urged to promote at least 40% emission reductions with no offsets by 2020.

Kamese Geoffrey of NAPE/ Friends of the Earth Uganda warned, “Rich countries are attempting to dodge their legal and moral responsibilities to reduce emissions. Developing countries and communities have historically had practically no fault in the creation of climate change, yet they will be the first to face the devastating impacts of climate change.”

Many of us have longstanding criticisms of the Kyoto Protocol, particularly its market mechanisms. But here’s why Kyoto is important:

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