Well, the delegates to the international climate talks in Copenhagen for the most part are headed for the airport or already winging their way home. Presumably you’ve seen the coverage; we won’t try to duplicate that here, although I’ll be back Monday with some reflections. We have some great photos that have been rotating through InvestigateWest’s billboard slideshow that I’m going to feature below, plus Blair Kelly’s video of the last major protest, which includes dramatic scenes of police beating demonstrators — some with their hands in the air — with batons. Activists (perhaps ironically, considering they were shut down by the Copenhagen cops) dubbed that protest “Reclaim the Power.”
If you’re interested in a few tidbits you may have missed in the way of denouement on the negotiations, check out:
- The notes covering the final United Nations plenary in Copenhagen, courtesy of Andrew Revkin’s Dot.Earth blog at the NYT (we’ll miss him — he’s taking a buyout, but I hear he may keep doing the blog), and
- Bill McKibben’s critique of an NYT story on the Group of 77, defending them of course. I have to say that the most remarkable aspect of the talks for me was the way the poor nations made it known they are not going to be pushed around any more. It’s very much a parallel to what happened at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle 10 years ago this month.
- David Roberts at Grist.org explains why this wasn’t a deal at all: http://bit.ly/4MQ7yO (and don’t miss the telling photo posted by ex-Grister Kate Sheppard, now at Mother Jones.)
Look after the video for the great shots grabbed in the final hours of the conference by Christopher Crow and Mark Malijan:
The leader of the free world strides to the podium. InvestigateWest photo by Mark Malijan.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon in the final hours of the negotiations. InvestigateWest photo by Mark Malijan.
Prime Minister George Papandreou of Greece on the final day of the negotiations. InvestigateWest photo by Christopher Crow.
It took the United Nations two weeks to grant credentials to the InvesgtigateWest team and they finally got in on the key day -- the day the deal was sealed. This is an art installation inside the Bella Center, where the talks were held. InvestigateWest photo by Mark Malijan.
More from inside the Bella Center. InvestigateWest photo by Mark Malijan.
