by LEIGH PHILLIPS
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Hundreds of activists from Greenpeace, the campaigning environmental NGO, blocked all the exits to the EU Council of Ministers building in Brussels on Tuesday (10 March), trapping inside finance ministers from the 27 member states for several hours.
The 340 mostly young protesters from across Europe mounted the direct action, more radical than the many demonstrations that regularly take place outside EU institution buildings in the Belgian capital's European quarter. They were trying to highlight the failure of ministers to commit to funds for carbon emissions reductions and climate change adaptation measures in the developing world.
"Finance ministers are giving billions of taxpayers' money to failed banks, but we're here to make sure they also put money on the table to tackle climate change," said Thomas Henningsen, a campaigner with Greenpeace International. "If the planet were a bank, they would bail it out."
The activists said they were sealing in the finance ministers, in Brussels to discuss both the economic crisis and to consider proposals published in January by the European Commission on what stance to take at the upcoming UN conference in Copenhagen in December. There, a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol - due to expire in two years - is to be negotiated.
Climate finance in the developing world
Climate finance for the third world has become the main focus of discussion in the lead-up to the Copenhagen meeting. If the EU and US stump up significant chunks of cash for cutting emissions and climate adaptation, developing countries may in return commit to considerable CO2 reductions even though it is the industrialised north that is responsible for most of the emissions that caused the problem.
Last week, EU environment ministers meeting in Brussels failed to commit funds for climate finance in the developing world. It is not expected that the finance ministers will either, leaving the decision to be taken by premiers and presidents when they meet from 19-20 March at their spring summit in Brussels.
The Greenpeace activists marched past security outside the building at its two entrances at 11:00 a.m., and then sat down, blocking the doors until federal Belgian police, local Brussels police and some units from zones beyond the capital handcuffed and dragged the protesters away into a phalanx of paddy wagons two hours later.
Three activists were injured as a result of the police actions and are currently in hospital.
Agnes de Rooij, a campaigner with Greenpeace International, said that the group had no plans to mount a similar action during the leaders' summit.
Ocean acidification, Netherlands flooded
The action took place as climate scientists meeting this week in Copenhagen ahead of the UN conference later in the year have said that data on global warming shows that earlier predictions were wildly over-optimistic.
On Sunday, the scientists warned that previous estimates of sea-level rises due to global warming of around 20 to 60 centimetres by 2100 were too low, and that a rise of about a metre is now more realistic.
Such a rise would result in low-lying areas - notably most of the Netherlands, but also Bangladesh, Florida, and the Maldives having disastrous flooding.
Worse still, if average global temperatures increase by four degrees, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets would likely entirely melt. A melting of the Greenland sheet would lift sea levels by seven metres. A melting of the Antarctic sheet would lift sea levels by 60 metres.
On Tuesday, scientists from Bristol University revealed at the meeting that the world's oceans are undergoing a dangerous acidification process not seen in 65 million years.
The gathered experts are this week to publish an update to the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment report. Many studies issued since 2007 show that carbon emissions are increasing faster than previous projections, meaning that recommended CO2 reduction targets of 25-40 percent by 2020 on 1990 levels are insufficient.
The EU has committed itself to CO2 reductions of 20 percent by 2020, and 30 percent by the same date if other wealthy nations agree to similar targets.
Source: www.euobserver.com
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Hundreds of activists from Greenpeace, the campaigning environmental NGO, blocked all the exits to the EU Council of Ministers building in Brussels on Tuesday (10 March), trapping inside finance ministers from the 27 member states for several hours.
The 340 mostly young protesters from across Europe mounted the direct action, more radical than the many demonstrations that regularly take place outside EU institution buildings in the Belgian capital's European quarter. They were trying to highlight the failure of ministers to commit to funds for carbon emissions reductions and climate change adaptation measures in the developing world.
"Finance ministers are giving billions of taxpayers' money to failed banks, but we're here to make sure they also put money on the table to tackle climate change," said Thomas Henningsen, a campaigner with Greenpeace International. "If the planet were a bank, they would bail it out."
The activists said they were sealing in the finance ministers, in Brussels to discuss both the economic crisis and to consider proposals published in January by the European Commission on what stance to take at the upcoming UN conference in Copenhagen in December. There, a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol - due to expire in two years - is to be negotiated.
Climate finance in the developing world
Climate finance for the third world has become the main focus of discussion in the lead-up to the Copenhagen meeting. If the EU and US stump up significant chunks of cash for cutting emissions and climate adaptation, developing countries may in return commit to considerable CO2 reductions even though it is the industrialised north that is responsible for most of the emissions that caused the problem.
Last week, EU environment ministers meeting in Brussels failed to commit funds for climate finance in the developing world. It is not expected that the finance ministers will either, leaving the decision to be taken by premiers and presidents when they meet from 19-20 March at their spring summit in Brussels.
The Greenpeace activists marched past security outside the building at its two entrances at 11:00 a.m., and then sat down, blocking the doors until federal Belgian police, local Brussels police and some units from zones beyond the capital handcuffed and dragged the protesters away into a phalanx of paddy wagons two hours later.
Three activists were injured as a result of the police actions and are currently in hospital.
Agnes de Rooij, a campaigner with Greenpeace International, said that the group had no plans to mount a similar action during the leaders' summit.
Ocean acidification, Netherlands flooded
The action took place as climate scientists meeting this week in Copenhagen ahead of the UN conference later in the year have said that data on global warming shows that earlier predictions were wildly over-optimistic.
On Sunday, the scientists warned that previous estimates of sea-level rises due to global warming of around 20 to 60 centimetres by 2100 were too low, and that a rise of about a metre is now more realistic.
Such a rise would result in low-lying areas - notably most of the Netherlands, but also Bangladesh, Florida, and the Maldives having disastrous flooding.
Worse still, if average global temperatures increase by four degrees, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets would likely entirely melt. A melting of the Greenland sheet would lift sea levels by seven metres. A melting of the Antarctic sheet would lift sea levels by 60 metres.
On Tuesday, scientists from Bristol University revealed at the meeting that the world's oceans are undergoing a dangerous acidification process not seen in 65 million years.
The gathered experts are this week to publish an update to the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment report. Many studies issued since 2007 show that carbon emissions are increasing faster than previous projections, meaning that recommended CO2 reduction targets of 25-40 percent by 2020 on 1990 levels are insufficient.
The EU has committed itself to CO2 reductions of 20 percent by 2020, and 30 percent by the same date if other wealthy nations agree to similar targets.
Source: www.euobserver.com
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