COP15 failure: 82 months left to avert disaster

Copenhagen summit special

By Virginia Newman, Joey Severn and Tom Knowles

It was the biggest climate summit since Kyoto. The world held its breath as world leaders came together and thousands of protesters descended on the Danish capital in what was hoped to be as defining a moment for mass protest as Seattle in 1999. In reality, it all went wrong. There was no binding deal at the conference and the mass social movement some had hoped for never materialised. Leeds Student was there as the time to save our planet slipped through the fingers of the world’s politicians, and as helpless protesters could only choke back the tear gas.

“What’s for breakfast?”
“Salad and rye bread.”
“Right.”
“They got it from rubbish bins.”
“OK. Maybe I’ll just have some tea then. Is there any milk?”
“Yeah, well… soya milk anyway.”
    The sharp introduction to a communal, freegan, vegan way of living was a little hard to adapt to at first. Things were not going well. Three of us from Leeds Student had travelled down to Copenhagen (by plane) to report on student activists from Leeds and around the world who were planning to make their voices heard at the Copenhagen Climate Summit. Having arrived two days late, we had already missed the mass arrest of protesters on Saturday in which hundreds had been forced to sit out in the freezing cold for hours, with no water, food or freedom to move about.
    As reporters looking for the ‘exciting stuff’, we were not doing well.
But keeping it somewhat under wraps that we were reporters, we were given a unique insight into the behind-the-scenes world of the activists in Copenhagen.
    We stayed in a school provided by the Danish council. Classrooms became mass bedrooms for activists to roll their sleeping bags out on. The reception area became a place for morning meetings. The piano, presumably usually used for school assemblies and choir practice, now provided a soothing musical interlude between mistreatment from police and planning the next protest. A feeling of education mixed with rebellion constantly lingered in the air.
    The school canteen meanwhile was transformed into a freegan dream. Freeganism basically means searching for food that has been thrown out by shops but is still edible. After drawing a map of the four or five places where it would be best to raid food skips, a small group would head out each morning in search of free food that could feed hundreds of hungry activists. They would come back with bin bags full of untouched bread loaves, masses of fruit and vegetables, spreads, cheese and jam. Everything was very edible.
    Meetings would be held each morning to discuss events from the day before and to plan upcoming actions. A lot of sign language was used. If a person agreed with someone and wanted to show their support for what they were saying, they would waggle their hands, much like a ‘hear hear’, except, well, funnier. Seeing forty people dotted across the room at a meeting making jazz hands whilst maintaining deadly earnest faces was a sight not easily forgotten.
    By now you probably have images of goateed, sandal-wearing men and women chanting and eating lentil pies after a long day demonstrating against the use of fossil fuels. It would be wrong to say that there wasn’t a bit of that, but some myths should be dispelled. Firstly, meat was eaten many protesters, ham sandwiches weren’t a rare sight in the kitchen. Secondly, idealism was grounded in reality. People knew a deal was unlikely to be made at the Bella centre, they knew police and the council wouldn’t treat them lightly, and they were very aware that their actions and way of living was not possible on a wide scale.
    LUU Community Officer, Hannah Greenslade, who was at Copenhagen said: “I think it’s idealistic to think that this is something that could spread out across the world. It was an empowering way of living. It demonstrated there are alternatives and we don’t have to just sit down and say, ‘this is the way things are and so we have to get on with it’. But I’m very aware that it is people with the money, or time, or luxury who can live like that, so it’s definitely not a practical model that should be advocated throughout society.”

Alternative structure

The idea of a non-hierarchical communal society also did not just mean stoned-out hippies. The school was run as like a structured co-op, with each person having a role that would benefit the next. Rotas and duties were established from the beginning:
    “It’s funny, once people accept that someone isn’t going to do stuff for them, it’s amazing how quickly people find their roles.” Hannah commented. “There were two people there who wanted the role of raiding skips every morning to find food, others wanted to organise meetings. Everyone played the role that needed doing or they wanted to play, and for me that seemed a really good way to operate.”
    Everyone was willing to act productively, spurred on perhaps by the significance of the event. There was a sense amongst activists in Copenhagen that a vital connection with people across the world who felt the same way about climate change was being established. Jesse Harris, a fourth year Spanish and Politics student, was also in Copenhagen at the time.
    “It was a really inspiring moment to be with all these different people who were acting in hugely different contexts around the world. From people acting out of direct necessity in countries that are being affected by climate change, to people acting out of a more moral necessity. I learnt a lot about working with groups, styles of taking action and ways of debating.”
    But although this may have been the case at protests, the school we stayed in was predominantly white, middle class and in their twenties. Schools and sleeping places had also been allocated according to countries of origin. So for an event that was supposed to be about people joining together as one to fight climate change, there was always a feeling of boundaries and isolation. From the politicians locked away in conference rooms to protesters only hanging out with people from home, it’s a small wonder everyone blamed each other when it all ended in failure.
    But the strong commitment seen in the school to go out whatever the weather to demonstrate, to live sustainably, and to work well together throughout the week was an inspiring one. It made the three of us question our cynicism to the hippie dream. Our planet is in dire trouble but perhaps with dedicated people like this, changes can be made. It seems right to join them, even if that means soya milk teas.  

Protests    

Despite the strong commitment to go out on marches whatever the weather, it was interesting to see how little interaction there was with what was happening in talks at the Bella Centre.
    “We were quite detached from what was going on.” Hannah admitted.  “We weren’t reading the news and it was amazing how close we were to it without much awareness of what was going on. But people weren’t hanging onto every word that come out of a politician’s mouth because I think there was an assumption that whatever it was, it wasn’t going to be what we needed. People were more focused on demonstrating the reasons why we wouldn’t get a good deal, and on taking actions together and kind of getting on with our own things.

Reclaim power

Given the number of arrests at the weekend, and the fact that the Danish police were seemingly using tear gas like it was going out of fashion, we were all pretty nervous about the ‘Reclaim the power’ day of action. There was an excited buzz as people made sandwiches, filled water bottles and tried to get their hands on as much maalox, an antacid that is supposed to help with the effects of tear gas, as they could. With cameras charged, an inordinate number of layers of clothing on and the hope that our press cards would stop us from being arrested, we bedded down for the night, one ear open for the blasts on the fog horn that would give us the warning of a police raid.
    Fresh snow was falling as we awoke on the Wednesday morning. Two police were already vans parked outside. Everyone was searched on the way out, passports were checked and meticulously packed bags were forced open. The police officers were in good spirits, joking with protesters and warning us that it was going to be cold one. I could see why they were so happy after we finally got out - they got be inside.
    The protesters’ main aim of the day was to get into the Bella Centre, where the meetings between politicians were occurring. They planned to set up a counter summit that would allow regular people, and not just politicians, to have their say on how climate change could be stopped. But despite hopes that the group could overcome ‘any physical barriers that stand in our way’ the ring of steel surrounding the Bella Centre made it look increasingly unlikely that their dreams would become reality.
    After a short train journey to the meeting point we joined our ‘bloc’ and tried to warm up. The police presence was small and relatively non confrontational as protesters waited to begin the walk. However once the march began it was clear the low police presence was not going to continue. A line of police flanked the right side of the march while police vans lined the left causing a moving wall to shepherd the protesters. Trouble flared early on in the march. Protesters were angered by the moving vans trapping people. Annoyance grew when undercover police pulled a protester from the crowd, pushing him into a waiting police van that sped off down a side street.
    Just before the group got to the security fencing outside the Bella Centre they were joined by a number of cyclists from bike bloc, a collective of cyclists whose main aim was to annoy police by riding really slowly in front of their cars. As the group approached the police line the size of their task became clear: a line of police, a further line of police vans and a huge three meter high concrete bottomed fence, behind which were yet more police in riot gear with dogs.
    The truck carrying the ‘People’s Assembly’ stopped just in front of the police vans and a woman with an incredibly annoying voice began to give a speech that culminated in a call to ‘Push for climate justice!’ The crowd linked arms and began to surge forward, only to be met by riot police, batons drawn and pepper spray at the ready. Around twenty protesters managed to reach the actual fencing and, in their attempts to scale it, received a face full of pepper spray.     

Pepper spray

The sight of chemicals burning into the eyes of a young woman, in what was supposed to be a non-violent and peaceful protest, was difficult to come to terms with. The ferocity of the police forced protesters back. Riot vans began to pen in protesters in and force them down the road. Police suddenly declared the protest illegal. Protesters were told the Queen of Denmark didn’t like the people on the street, exercising their democratic rights, and that if we didn’t all want to get arrested then we best move. Many people did just that and simply walked off in the opposite direction of the main protest.
    But many stayed. A large group of protesters managed to construct a huge raft made from inflatable mattresses roped together. They made their way to the canal flowing around the Bella Centre, breaking through fencing and edging the raft out onto the water. Police were waiting on the other side, their dogs yanking at the leads in anticipation of the first protesters disembarking from their vessel. Inevitably the few protesters that actually managed to cross the raft were beaten by police and dragged off over the bank and out of site. It was a futile effort but showed the resourcefulness of the activists and an unwillingness to give up in the face of a hopeless cause.
    At the same time that protesters were being beaten outside, a similar sight was occurring within the Bella Centre itself. A number of developing nations present at the conference had left the main talks in protest at being ignored and were attempting to join the peoples assembly outside.
    Police had other ideas. As a mix of delegates, National Government Organisations representatives and critics of climate change attempted to leave they were violently beaten back by police and were forced to stage a sit-in within the centre. Police were now allowing the cold to batter off the protesters, waiting for them to essentially give up and walk home. Which is exactly what happened. In fact we literally walked all the way to the centre of Copenhagen.
    Given the size of the events that occurred the weekend before, the number of arrests and the importance of the talks for the entire human race, the Reclaim the Power day of action seemed to be a culmination of all the previous marches and actions. In the end it wasn’t.
    Hannah Greenslade, LUU Community Officer, summed up the mood of many: “It could have been a really good thing that there were people from all over the world who were used to taking actions in different ways and that could been really useful, but I think what actually happened was that there was some confusion about how people should best operate.
    “My impression was that in Denmark they work very closely together and move as ‘one’, whereas in the UK we tend to break into smaller groups and do swoops and form infinity groups etc, so those are completely different ways of operating, and I think there was a loss of communication between groups and it wasn’t that well thought through.
    I thought Wednesday was a bit of anti-climax and I was expecting more people to be there, as that seemed to be the main thing we had been organising for.”