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A hundred thousand protesters marched on the streets of Copenhagen over the weekend to pressure governments gathered there to agree on a fair, ambitious and binding treaty that will drastically cut green house gas emissions. Over a thousand people were arrested, most of them preemptively under a newly passed Danish law. Meanwhile, inside the halls of the Bella Center where tens of thousands of delegates are negotiating, there has also been a protest. Just as the talks began to enter their final phase, negotiations were suspended by poor, mostly African countries from the group called G77-China. Lumumba Di-Aping, the chief negotiator for the group told BBC Radio, “It has become clear that the Danish presidency – in the most undemocratic fashion – is advancing the interests of the developed countries at the expense of the balance of obligations between developed and developing countries.” At stake is the decision over whether to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol with a new, more ambitious binding agreement or extend the Kyoto Protocol for several more years. By the end of the week President Obama and other major heads of state will arrive in Copenhagen to put their stamp on the end point of negotiations.

GUEST: Gopal Dayaneni is the delegation coordinator for the Movement Generation

Read Gopal Dayaneni’s article here: http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/climate-action/
how-to-break-the-climate-stalemate-between-the-global-south-and-the-north

Find out more at www.movementgeneration.org.