COP 17: Week 2
Tomorrow marks the entry of the Heads of States from across the globe to finalise COP 17 agreements and the way forward. Week 1 saw the negotiators from 194 nations come together to thrash out the negotiations process amongst ongoing divisions that have flowed over from one COP to the next.
President of COP 17, Ms Mashabane emphasized today and on Thursday last week, that the negotiators have been dealing with the difficult issues so when the ministers arrive we have very little issues. The US has not changed its stale stance. Canada, Japan and Russia are also adamant about non-commitment to a 2nd Commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol (KP 2).
The weekend saw mass movements from across the globe, at a count of about 5000 protesters, unified in their stance against climate and environmental injustices, corporate abuse, ecological destruction and human rights. Today, Greenpeace activists attempted their legacy tactics of taking activism to extremes and scaled a nearby building, a hotel close to the ICC, to hoist its banner in protest of the corporate influence and power over the COP 17 negotiations. Seven activists were arrested and detained.
When the historical polluters and their protectors, that is, governments work side by side in marginalising legally-binding commitments and ambitious targets to aid the global community, legitimate structures acting on behalf of the aggrieved masses have no choice but to resort to tactics that will make the cries visible and heard. The problem is it's ever so easy to criminalise dissent and go on making profits with a flick of the incident on one's corporate shoulder.
The age-old government (electioneering campaign) 'for the people' eventually becomes so detached from the people and allow themselves to be held to economic ransom by big business puppet-masters.
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