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COP15: Be part of the party!

party lion | 05.12.2009 17:22 | COP15 Climate Summit 2009 | Social Struggles

Copenhagen – COP15 – World Climate Summit

On December 12th 2009 a mass demonstration against the COP15 Climate Summit will take place in Copenhagen. A mixture of very different people, groups and organizations are going to participate.

Unfortunately, the official route of the demonstration will directly lead out of the city centre...

... and into a barren part of town around the conference building, where it is going to end. It will also not be possible for us to change our mind on the way and turn around in order to bring our protest to public places, as after 30 minutes the demonstration will cross a draw-bridge, which can prevent us from returning to the inner city in the blink of an eye. This is why we think it is important to make up our minds beforehand, which way we want to go.

All information about travel, sleeping places, legal rights, actions, maps, food, medics, etc. can be found at www.climate-justice-action.org

Don’t get turned into a pawn

We have made our decision already. We will not act as pawns to be sacrificed, as part of a indignant but stranded demonstration, so only a few chief negotiators, pointing to 50,000 bored demonstrators, can present half a percentage point more of carbon reduction. We want to get active ourselves.

As draughts we are unbeatable!

There are a lot of better options for this Saturday. The demonstration will meet in the city centre of Copenhagen. All around and within walking distance are the hotels of the delegates, the offices and shops of the climate profiteers and those who brand themselves as green, just because their cars now burn a liter less petrol than 30 years ago. And in the so-called Forum, an exhibition centre at the western edge of the city centre, large scale greenwashing will happen: On the fair »Bright Green«, openly organized by the »Confederation of Danish Industries«, the representatives of politics and the economy that have poisoned the social climate – as well as any other climate – during the last 200 years and up till today, will present themselves as saviours at the 12th and 13th of December. They will award prizes to each other, inviting VIPs and delegates to join in. Perhaps this would be the right location for us to demonstrate our opinion.

While in the conference centre in the wastelands there will be only the media, the inner city offers both the media and the real public. This is a twofold invitation to carry the protest to where it belongs. This is a call out to all theatre and samba groups, to the people carrying banners and the friends of civil disobediance. An invitation to those active in flood-for-climate-justice, to sitting blockaders and circles of friends – to all who want more and who are serious about creating pressure. An invitation to contribute to the fight for a better world with your own creative or non-creative actions in public places. »We can do it!« will become reality in the moment we are not chasing after someone, but when we determine ourselves how to act and refuse to be used as chess pieces!

A king we do not need

Progressive changes have always been eked out through pressure from below. Organizations like big NGOs and hierarchical unions are embedded in power relations, and, regardless of individual exceptions, they are structually conservative – they will fight only after people in the street begin the fight. And this is the time to act. We want to abandon the hope that those who destroyed the world for decades will all of sudden save it!

Despite our otherwise perhaps different views, in Copenhagen we have a common goal:

To stop the madness!

Just do it.

party lion