The following is a guest post from David Meyer and Annabelle Vinois, Earth Charter International friends and supporters. They captured an interesting moment at the conference. We thank them for sharing.
Even if Rio Centro was the center of the
largest conference in UN history, sometimes it could also be a pretty dull
place. So after the fist few days, when
young climate activists started organizing protests each evening around the
"Fossil of the Day Award," recognizing the country most opposed to
the environment in negotiations, we started following them around. On the second to last day of the summit, they
planned a larger action and let us in to help plan and film. The idea was to symbolically tear up a copy
of the agreement, drawing attention to what they felt was the inappropriate
influence of major corporations on the final draft text. Then a young indigenous girl would sing a
song, and those who wanted to would sit and occupy the protest space and see
what happened.
What happened was that people started to
speak out, and people turned out to be pretty angry. So everyone sat down in groups, discussed the
conference and how best to show their protest, and well - the video shows the
whole story, but the result of it all was a consensus decision that led to 100+
people walking out of the conference, handing in their badges on the way out in
protest. It was an inspiring moment -
and for a the three hours the protest lasted, Rio Centro was anything but dull!
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