This makes me smile…ministers making appologies about policing is a nice thing to see. But then again 5.9 million pounds on a peaceful camp is a pretty big fuck-up. Fingers crossed that will make a difference for future events.

The battle against coal continues. This time a coal rail terminal in South Lanarkshire is shut down.

In a statement, Coal Action Scotland appologised to workers but said that in the face of climate change they saw no alternatvie to targeting the companies involved in extraction of, what is after all, the most polluting fuel known to mankind.

Coal Action Scotland is part of the UK-wide Coal Action Network of individuals opposing the developments of a new generation of coal powered energy generation.

Media:

• The Herald
• Evening Times online
• Daily Record
• BBC
• Lanark Gazette

The Police are obliged to fess-up to the gross inaccuracy of their public scare-mongering.
The IEA are obliged to fess-up to the gross inaccuracy of their energy forecasts

From Poznan, via Elisabeth Rosenthal via Andrew Revkin at DotEarth;-

Prodipto Ghosh of the Indian delegation berated wealthy countries for their “refusal” to “experience a minuscule loss of profits” to help poorer nations cope. He continued: “In the face of the unbearable human tragedy that we in developing countries see unfolding every day, we see callousness, strategizing and obfuscation.

When the Camp for Climate Action rolled into Kingsnorth this year even veterans where suprised by the over the top policing. Being searched–often illigally-two or three times before getting onto site was quite common. This despite the history of the camp as a place of education, sustainable living which eschews physical violence…and our open meeting with our minutes online. It was quite clear that political policing to clamp down on the energy of a growing social movement was what we where seeing.

Despite this many in the media had no problem with reporting police claims of a weapons stash–it turns out that at the end of the operation no weapons where recorded in the list of confiscatred materials.

Now it turns out that the ‘70 injuries’ being reported by the police do not exist, and those injuries that did occur where due to mosquito bites and toothache! You cant make this stuff up. The Lib Dems brought this to light using a freedom of information request.

The Home Office has now admitted that the protesters had not been responsible for any injuries. In a three-line written answer to a parliamentary question, the Home Office minister Vernon Coaker wrote to the Lib Dem justice spokesman, David Howarth, saying: “Kent police have informed the Home Office that there were no recorded injuries sustained as a result of direct contact with the protesters.”

Only four of the 12 reportable injuries involved any contact with protesters at all and all were at the lowest level of seriousness with no further action taken.

I am increasingly impressed by the Lib Dem line on climate change. It seems that if there is any climate change event the Lib Dems are likely to be representing and certainly seem to be making it a key priority for the party.

Norman Baker, the Lib Dem MP for Lewes, who had called previously for an investigation of police tactics, said: “I personally witnessed unnecessarily aggressive policing, unprovoked violence against peaceful protesters, an extraordinary number of police on site, and tactics such as confiscating toilet rolls, board games and clown costumes from what I saw to be peaceful demonstrators.”

Lib Dem justice spokesman made it clear why he thought the policing was so heavy:

Howarth said: “That the minister could defend as ‘proportionate’ a £5.9m policing operation in which there was not a single injury to police officers caused by the protesters beggars belief. The threat posed by environmental direct action is being systematically overblown by both the government and the police.

“I hope the government and the police will now stop trying to portray peaceful protesters as somehow equivalent to terrorists or violent extremists. In light of this new evidence, one has to ask, were climate campers so heavily policed because they posed any genuine threat of violence, or because they posed a challenge to government policy?”

Nick Thorpe, a spokesman for the climate camp, said: “Policing of peaceful protest has become increasingly heavy-handed. We saw thousands of officers swarming around a legal camp in a colossal waste of public money. The police and the government claimed there was a ‘violent minority’ of protesters but this Home Office admission reveals this as a complete fiction.”

From The :

• Guardian
• Telegraph

The jeremy vine show takes a look at the action by Plane Stupid that shut down Stansted airport.

One issue picked up by the media and now, looking like a handle for BAA to grab on to is class. Some members of plane stupid are from privaliged backgrounds, and that interests journalists for some reason. I`m not sure that this would be the worst thing in the world in normal times but in a receesion it really isnt what you want. It’s easy to drive a wedge between those supposedly with the luxury of protest and those who need cheap air fairs and a strong economy.

—–

From the Guardian (link)

Plane Stupid’s activists train in protest techniques, such as padlocking themselves to things, so as she sat on the ground near Stansted’s runway, Rosie Slay was not overly concerned for her safety, despite the bicycle D-lock attaching her to a fence by the throat. Safety is always a big consideration during the group’s actions, she says.

The police had arrived shortly after the protesters, and were removing them one by one from their makeshift barricade, cutting some loose with bolt cutters. It still took more than two hours, to the demonstrators’ delight, though Slay didn’t delay the officers for as long as she had hoped – the police found the key to her lock on the grass.

Five days after the daring 3am action that shut down one of London’s airports, cancelled 52 flights, disrupted thousands of passengers, amassed huge international publicity and prevented the equivalent damage, by Greenpeace’s estimate, of 2,162 tonnes of CO2, the young activists of Plane Stupid have been reflecting on what they consider as the enormous success of their intervention.

“We were really, really happy as we were getting arrested,” says Slay, 20, a student originally from Hackney, east London. “We had people on the phones talking to the media and as we got more and more information about the amount of coverage, we were really elated.”

Coverage of Monday’s protest, and the curiously polite radicals who staged it, has focused on their backgrounds as “toffee-nosed youngsters”, a collection of supposedly spoiled rich kids with more time than insight.

Still essentially a student movement, there is no question that like most university campuses, Plane Stupid is more white and more middle class than the national demographic.

But the most striking common characteristic of those who took part in the protest is their unwavering conviction, which is compelling.

Josh Moos, who like Slay is a student at Sussex University, is at 21 almost an elder statesman of the group, having been involved with the campaign since shortly after it was set up three years ago. He used to be “an armchair environmentalist”, he says, but “I realised from further reading that climate change is the most pressing issue of our time. All further issues are of course important but they all become subjugated to the issue of climate change.”

His unofficial role during the runway occupation was to reassure the newer campaigners. The group also provides training in techniques for resisting arrest, media skills and advice on how to deal with your parents.

In total, 54 people were arrested on the taxiway at Stansted, along with a further three as they attempted to leave. Dan Glass, one of the group’s leading figures in Scotland, came south to participate with 14 other “affiliates” in Monday’s action, but only two chose to get arrested on the runway. The rest preferred to keep their noses clean in anticipation of potential future protests at Glasgow and Edinburgh airports.

Last summer Glass, 25, hit the headlines after supergluing himself to Gordon Brown. He rejects the middle class tag, particularly when applied to those living in the poor Glasgow suburbs campaigning against the expansion of the city’s airport: “Fifteen percent of the population never even fly, and many of them live in Clydebank, where they are really affected by Glasgow airport. In Scotland the demographic of people involved includes a lot of people who are really economically marginalised,” he says.

While some have characterised the action as that of “militant environmentalists”, the group argues that what is seen today as dangerously radical will one day be accepted. “We are definitely on the radical end of the spectrum and that is where we wish to be,” says Moos. “Visionaries are initially seen as radical before the mainstream catches up with them and accepts their policies.”

I havent been following the UNFCCC talks this year, this is in stark contrast to last year when i wrote all these posts!

However, there are some useful links for those of you who want to look at what is going on is some detail.

All the video from the conference can be found here.
Breifings from the climate action network are here.
Negotiation results in depth in this IISD bulletin.

Al Gores talk on the final day may also be of interest.

For various legal reasons taxing aviation isn’t an easy thing to do. Thats a shame as even the British govornment acknowledge the importance of the polluter pays principal.

Now, it looks like climate change activists are getting around the problems of official taxation by levying a de facto security tax.

Tarmac incursions are particularly difficult to police because airports have huge surface areas. “The amount of time and money you would have to put into perimeter security is enormous,” an expert said. “Some airports are spending 40 percent of their entire budget on security, and that number is going to go up.” The additional cost would “undoubtedly” be paid for by the traveling public, he said. Source: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/12/09/ap5799498.html

With the continuing gulf between govornment goals on climate change and govornment actions the time for direct action has come–things are hotting up in the UK.

After participating and a direct action against aviation organised by Plane Stupid I ended up in a police cell being charged with agrevated tresspass. Then I returned home to find that eight police officers had searched my room and the comunal areas of the house. Apparently they left at 2:50am!

In my absence they decided to take my printer, my mobile phone, all of the leaflets on my wall, my notes for a report i`m writing, my camcorder, all my credit cards, my membership of Kew gardens and a few other things. If my laptop where in my room it sure as hell wouldnt be here for me to post this with.

The action at Stansted was inevitably going to lead to arrests and we where prepared for that: this was my first time in a police cell. The experiance in custody was actually pretty good, and it was great fun listening to the Jeremy Vine show on bbc radio 2 (the uk’s most popular radio station) which lated around 20 minutes and was overall a very good discussion of why we risked personal arrest and upsetting the public. I must say right now I feel like i have been robbed. What does a camcorder or a printer have to do with a direct action against Stansted: preciesly nothing.

However, i shouldnt dwell to much on what the police where doing while I was out the building as I was doing something far more important. It’s great not to have to look back rosy eyed on the sixties and the civil rights movement. We have something of similar importance, arguably greater, and this fight against catastrophic climate change is happening now. Such movements are never recognised as the moral forces that they are untill after the change they are pushing for has been achieved. The militant Suffragettes where not politically acceptable at the time and where widel derided but now you will be hard pushed to find someone willing to criticise them. Well, that thought helps when sitting in police cells or in a room with half it’s contents gone.

Video:

Stories:

Politics.co.uk Analysis
Independent
Guardian
Al Jazera
BBC
Environmental News Service