Panda bears with flames coming out of their heads, flying blue dragons, the usual rake of tree-hugging environmentalists and an inordinate number of polar bears took to the streets of Copenhagen today. Estimated at 100,000 strong, the march set off towards the Bella Centre, the venue for the UN’s COP15 climate summit, at 2pm today. There they’ll greet world leaders and give them a piece of their mind, irrespective that no one of note has shown up yet.
Suited up like Robocop, the Danish police are huge and ready to take on any climate heros, but so far they have been left with very little to do. Since an early ruckus in which 400 people — part of a peripheral march by the anarchist group “Never Trust a Cop” — were arrested, the march has been overwhelmingly peaceful.
At 1pm speakers greeted the crowd outside Copenhagen Town Hall. The usual rhetoric and a guest appearance by the new climate poster girl Helena Christensen left me withering and cynical in the cold. But the spirit is there and the atmosphere is a positive antithesis to the doom, gloom and general angst among those inside the centre.
Whether organisers planned this march in protest or solidarity with COP15 is hard to tell. Their demands are vague. They are calling for “climate justice” and “a legally binding agreement”. But they don’t talk about numbers, and they avoid the kind of contentious debate over targets that has already caused drastic divisions within the conference.
The crowd is diverse and illustrates one of the most interesting aspects of this summit. Here, for the first time, environmental action groups have come together with development agencies to acknowledge the threat of climate change to human lives. It is no longer just a movement of the green elite, a luxury guilt that only rich nations can afford. References to the human effects of climate change are ubiquitous. As Naomi Klein said yesterday, this conference is about “people, not polar bears”.
As the first seven days round up, it’s clear that this first week was all about the little guys — letting small island states and the less significant developing countries have their voices heard before China, the US and the EU fly in and bang up a deal. Whatever influence figures such as Sudan’s Lumumba Di-Aping might have felt in the past six days (speaking out against the leaked “Danish text”) will be obliterated once the real bargaining begins. What could prove significant, however, are the alliances that smaller nations have had the chance to make, if these can withstand the bargaining tactics of the greater powers. These tactics are the kind that stopped the Philippines negotiator and “dragon woman” Bernarditas Muller from joining her country’s delegation at the summit.
But then this kind of cynicism has no place here on the streets of “Hopenhagen”, and I have to get back to the march. After all, a bit of positive people action can’t do any harm.
Follow the New Statesman team on Twitter
Content from our partners
Related
