Tens of thousands of activists march in Copenhagen; 968 held

As the 12-day climate meet here reached its half-way mark, tens of thousands of activists, including Indian actor Rahul Bose, took to the streets demanding a strong treaty to tackle global warming, a rally that also saw sporadic violence and detention of 968 people.
    
Carrying placards reading 'Climate Justice Now,' 'Change the Politics,' and 'We're not planet B,' thousands of people walked towards the Bella Centre, where the UN climate change conference is being held, even as thousands others in cities around the world marched on the Global Action Day yesterday.
    
The four-hour rally was mostly held in a festive atmosphere, but riot police detained 968 activists after bottles were thrown and windows smashed, reports said.
    
Danish police estimate that some 30,000 people joined the march while organisers put the number at 100,000.
   
"Police rounded up protesters in a pre-planned manoeuvre," Simon Sheikh of Australian social and political network 'Get Up' told BBC. "It was unprovoked. They rounded up a group, including women and children, and pushed them into a store, before splitting them into groups and handcuffing them."
    
However, a police spokesman was quoted as saying that just four or five out of 968 arrested would be charged and asked to appear in court. He said most of those arrested had been part of an organised group which had been throwing fireworks and stones.
    
Bollywood actor and OXFAM goodwill ambassador Rahul Bose flew down from India to join the protest and marched towards the venue of the UN climate meeting.
   
Other prominent faces included UN high commissioner for human rights Mary Robinson, actress Helen Baxendale, Elder Desmond Tutu and Danish model Helena Christensen.
    
Addressing a mass gathering of activists, Bose compared COP 15 climate meet here to a game of soccer drawing an analogy between developed and developing nations. He said that for several years the wealthy team with best coaches had defeated the poor team.
    
"Then, one day it was revealed that the rich team had cheated. There was a meeting like COP 15 between both teams when the rich team said: 'We'll stop cheating provided you stop playing soccer'," Bose said.
    
"Instead of telling us to stop emitting, they should give us the technology for clean energy," Bose said, noting that India still had huge challenges of poverty and illiteracy.
    
Leter speaking to PTI, Bose voiced his concern that India would be pressured into moving away from the Kyoto Protocol and taking legally binding cuts. "I came primarily because in India I got a feel that developing countries might move away from the Kyoto Protocol... I thought it was a good opportunity to put one more hand to the wheel... this is not a time to budge from our position."
    
However, Indian delegates yesterday spent a considerable part convincing their counterparts from the developed nations not to "sidestep" the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
    
Developing nations and oil producing states including India, China and Saudi Arabia, among others, insist there should be no detraction from Kyoto Protocol, the only legally-
binding treaty that imposes sanctions on industrialised nations.
  
The European Union and other developed nations like Australia and Japan hold the position that Kyoto is outdated and it neither puts obligations on the US nor on emerging economies. They call for a renewed protocol that puts more obligations on India and China.
    
On the half-way mark of the December 7-18 Copenhagen Climate Change conference, delegates expressed frustration that sufficient progress had not been made due to differences between the developed and developing world.
    
"Almost a week has passed (and) we are in a situation where we can see that we haven't achieved enough. If we would continue at this pace we would not manage what is to be achieved next week," Swedish environment minister Andreas Carlgren told reporters, speaking on behalf of the EU.
    
Negotiators were locked in closed-rooms poring over rough drafts of potential agreements, trying to reach some sort of compromise on divergent positions on technical issues and political stands before the heads of state and government from over 100 countries, including prime minister Manmohan Singh, US president Barack Obama and Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, arrive here for next week's high-level segment of the meet.
    
Around 48 ministers, including Indian environment minister Jairam Ramesh, are also here and engaged in closed-door informal meetings.