COPENHAGEN CRACKDOWN & CLIMATE TALK FAILURE PROTESTED AT SF DANISH CONSULATE

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Mobilization for Climate Justice West
Date: Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 2:33 PM
Subject: COP 15 LETTER OF CONCERN TO DANISH GOVERNMENT
To: "Helle Van Brunt, Danish Consular Officer, San Francisco"
Cc: "Dorthe Mikkelsen Wright, Honorary Danish Consul, San Francisco"


Helle Van Brunt,

Thank you for meeting with our 7 person delegation (including people from Mobilization for Climate Justice West, Greenpeace, One Sky, and youth participants in the global Climate Justice Fast), accepting and forwarding our delegation letter of concern and outrage (below) on behalf of your government. We request updates on the status all climate-related prisoners being held, NGO's denied entry to the Climate Summit, and the suspension of democratic rights, human rights and civil liberties.

Tomorrow from 4:30 to 6pm we will hold a mass protest outside your 1 California St., San Francisco Consulate offices in conjunction with other protest being held in Boston and other US cities. Marc Andrus, Episcopal Bishop of California and representatives many of the organizations listed below will speak out against your governments behavior. We will continue our public efforts until our concerns have been fully resolved.

For Climate Justice,

David Solnit, Mobilization for Climate Justice West

Text of letter delivered to Royal Danish Consulate, San Francisco on 1 meter by 2 meter paper with the enlarged associated press photo (file attached) of NGO delegates outside the Bella Center being beaten by Danish Police:

December 17, 2009

To: The Danish Parliament,
Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen,

We Demand:
• Release all climate prisoners now!
(Including Tadzio Mueller and other targeted spokespeople and organizers).

• Halt criminalization of activists in Copenhagen!

• Re-instate accreditation withdrawn from NGOs at Climate Summit!

We support to those in Copenhagen pushing for real and just solutions to climate change.

Sincerely,

MOBILIZATION FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE WEST:
Art in Action, Asian-Pacific Environmental Network, Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace and Justice, Bay Localize, Burmese American Democratic Alliance (BADA), Communities for a Better Environment, Direct Action to Stop the War, Earth First!, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Environmental Justice & Climate Change Initiative (EJCC), Filipino American Coalition for Environmental Solidarity (FACES), Forest Ethics, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, Global Exchange, Global Justice Ecology Project, Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, Greenpeace, Headrush, International Forum on Globalization, International Rivers, Justice in Nigeria Now!, Movement Generation, Oakland Institute, Pacific Environment, Poor Magazine, Rainforest Action Network, Richmond Mayor’s Taskforce on Environmental Justice and Health, , 350.org, Richmond Progressive Alliance, Ruckus Society, Rising Tide North America, Solidarity, West County Toxics Coalition, Youth In Focus

_________________________________________________________
EMERGENCY PROTEST & VIGIL
SOLIDARITY WITH ACTIVISTS IN COPENHAGEN

* CLIMATE TALKS UNDEMOCRATIC & ON VERGE OF FAILURE
* US/RICH COUNTRIES REFUSE SERIOUS REDUCTIONS & CLIMATE DEBT
* MASSIVE POLICE REPRESSION AGAINST NONVIOLENT CIVIL SOCIETY

WHEN: Friday December 18th 4:30-6:00PM
WHERE: Royal Danish Consulate, 1 California St
at Market St. (Embarcadero BART), San Francisco
Bring candles and friends.

"First they shut the public out of the climate negotiations, then they shut out 80% of NGOs who have been accredited to attend, and now they are jailing people who challenge the undemocratic nature of the climate negotiations, while the future of life on earth literally hangs in the balance."
-Dorothy Guerro, Focus on the Global South, Climate Justice Now Network.

WHY?
* UN CLIMATE TALKS ON VERGE OF FAILURE:
Because the US and other wealth climate polluting nations refuse to significantly reduce climate pollution and to pay our ecological debt to climate-impacted developing world and because of the lack of democracy in the UN climate talks. On Tuesday, US climate negotiator Todd Stern said he foresees no change in President Obama's offer to cut emissions by 17 percent of 2005 levels by2020. The proposal has been widely criticized because it amounts to just a four percent cut when adopting the 1990 emission standard used by the rest of the world. Scientists call for a 40% cut by 2020in order to prevent an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe. Meanwhile, developing countries including the US, UK and Denmark drafted and circulated a document to completely circumvent the UN from all further future negotiations.

* CIVIL SOCIETY NGO'S BANNED FROM UN:
Accredited civil society groups including Friends of the Earth, Avaaz, Tck Tck Tck, Via Campesina have been banned from the UN Climate Conference. "The surgical removal of non governmental organizations underscores the lack of democracy inherent in these negotiations. The only way to avoid catastrophic climate change is fully supporting and including peoples movements like the very ones illegitimately removed from this process.," said Professor Micheal Dorsey, a member of the Climate Justice Now! Network.

* DENMARK VIOLATES DEMOCRATIC & HUMAN RIGHTS, ATTACKS NONVIOLENT ACTIVISTS
Danish police have engaged in mass preemptive arrests, detentions, clubbed and pepper spayed nonviolent activists, raided organizing centers and suspended basic civil liberties and democratic rights. Dr. Tadzio Mueller of Berlin, an accredited NGO observer at the COP 15 and the spokesperson for Climate Justice Action, was arrested without provocation by plain clothed police shortly after a press conference announcing nonviolent demonstrations plans. He remains in jail awaiting trial. Several other organizers have also been targetted and are being hel in prison.

SIGN A PETITION TO THE DANISH GOVERNMENT HERE:
http://www.petitiononline.com/Tadzio/petition.html

WHO: Mobilization for Climate Justice West: A coalition of thirty climate justice, environmental justice, community, peace and human rights organizations.