Copenhagen: Protests continue at summit after arrests

http://www.timesofearth.com/Worldnews/?NT=0&nid=14446 Copenhagen - Police in Copenhagen have detained more than 200 people during a second day of protests as environment ministers from around the world met for informal talks to advance negotiations on a new climate pact.
Police stopped Sunday's attempted demonstration as it made its way towards the city's harbour.

Security officials also carried out a "stop-and-search" of some of the participants, Flemming Steen Munch, a police spokesman, said.

Munch said police found bolt-cutters and gas masks when they searched a truck that led the demonstration. At least 200 activists were detained, he said.

But critics condemned a Danish law that allows police to make preventative arrests if they believe a demonstration will turn violent and hold suspected troublemakers for up to 12 hours without a court arraignment.

"They have arrested 1,000 people [over the two days]. And they only followed up on three of them,"Ida Thuesen, a spokeswoman for Amnesty International, said. "There are lot of people who haven't done anything and had no intention of doing anything."

The climate conference took a day off on Sunday, though more than 40 environment ministers and other high-level negotiators were meeting for informal talks at the Danish roreign ministry on greenhouse emissions cuts and financing for poor nations to deal with climate change.

The pledges on emissions cuts so far are short of the minimum proposed in a draft agreement to keep temperatures from rising to a dangerous level.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa joined church leaders from Tuvalu, Zambia, Mexico, Greenland and Denmark to warn about the dangers of a warming world.

They carried symbols of climate change - a glacier stone from Greenland and bleached corals from the Pacific Ocean. Suzanne Matale, a cleric from Zambia, held up a dried-up cob of corn.

"Many people have already perished as a result of droughts, floods and desertification brought about by climate change," Matale said.

After the service the church bells sounded 350 times in a campaign to draw attention to global warming. Many scientists say 350 parts per million is the upper level of what is considered a safe concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.

The European Union, Japan and Australia joined the US on Saturday in criticising the draft global warming pact that says major developing nations must rein in greenhouse gases, but only if they have outside financing. Rich nations want developing nations to limit emissions, with or without financial help.

Jairam Ramesh, the Indian environment minister, said his country - the world's fifth worst greenhouse gas polluter - will not offer more than its current pledge to slow its growth rate of emissions. It has offered to cut greenhouse gases measured against production by 20 to 25 per cent by 2020.

China has made voluntary commitments to rein in its carbon emissions but doesn't want to be bound by international law to do so.


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• Turns
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• Arrested

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thousands to put pressure on leaders to come to an agreement? arent they there for the oppsite? what PROPAGANDA