COPENHAGEN: Danish police fired pepper spray and beat protesters with batons outside the UN climate conference on Wednesday, as disputes inside left major issues unresolved just two days before world leaders hope to sign a historic agreement to fight global warming.
Hundreds of protesters were trying to disrupt the 193-nation conference, the latest action in days of demonstrations to demand “climate justice” — firm steps to combat global warming. Police said 230 protesters were detained.
Inside the cavernous convention hall, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, among the first leaders to address the assembly, echoed the protesters’ sentiments.
“If the climate was a bank, a capitalist bank, they would have saved it,” he said.
Earlier, behind closed doors, negotiators dealing with core issues debated until just before dawn Wednesday without setting new goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions or for financing poorer countries’ efforts to cope with coming climate change, key elements of any deal.
“I regret to report we have been unable to reach agreement,” John Ashe of Antigua, chairman of one negotiating group, told the conference.
In those talks, the American delegation apparently objected to a proposed text it felt might bind the United States prematurely to reducing greenhouse gas emissions before Congress acts on the required legislation. US envoys insisted, for example, on replacing the word “shall” with the conditional “should.”
“A lot of things are in play,” said Fred Krupp of the US Environmental Defense Fund. “This is the normal rhythm of international negotiations.” Hundreds of protesters marched on the suburban Bella Center, where lines of Danish riot police waited in protective cordons. Some demonstrators said they wanted to take over the global conference and turn it into a “people’s assembly.” As they approached police lines, they were hit with pepper spray. TV pictures showed a man being pushed from a police van’s roof and struck with a baton by an officer.
Tens of thousands rallied in the Danish capital last weekend, demonstrating growing public awareness of the worldwide danger of ever-rising temperatures. Scientists say global warming will lead to the extinction of plant and animal species, the flooding of coastal areas from rising seas, more extreme weather, more drought and more widespread diseases.
The Copenhagen talks so far have been marked by sharp disagreements between China and the United States, and between rich and poor nations. Still unresolved are the questions of emissions targets for industrial countries, billions of dollars a year in funding for poor countries to contend with global warming, and verifying the actions of emerging powers like China and India to ensure that promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are kept.
