G20 Climate Camp – Expect the Best Crackdown Yet

STOP PRESS : Just received a text “Big Brother is turning off CCTV for the day. Don’t forget to bring your own. Please forward this text.” What can go on when nobody is watching ?

I’ve just been at one of several G20 Climate Camp convergence spaces this evening to get the full briefing.

I expected Police presence on the door, and yes, once again they were illegally photographing people coming and going from a public meeting.

I half suspected that I would be shut in once I arrived, so I came armed with the world’s smallest sleeping bag, two litres of water, a fleece, snow jacket, Arctic cap, wind up torch, toilet roll, money and keys, but no ID whatsoever.

I knew I wasn’t really “swoop” material for tomorrow’s rush to set up the Climate Camp, so I offered my services in other ways.

Here’s some of the information the Climate Camp are wanting to share.

The Media messaging, key points, paraphrased by me :-

1. Carbon Trading has not and will not stop the rise in Carbon Emissions.

2. The G20 conference is an attempt to patch up a system that is likely to continue to cause disaster – runaway Climate Change.

3. 2009 is a pivotal year and the right decisions must be made now.

Press Pack :-

http://dump.jonathanleighton.com/Climate%20Camp%20PRESSPACK%2030.3.09.pdf

The Workshops programme (look for people in green sashes saying “Workshops”) has items like this :-

SPACE 1 : 2pm : Trading your way into Trouble : How carbon trading hasn’t worked so far, why it’s not going to work and the problems it’s causing in the Global South – from CarbonTradeWatch group.

SPACE 1 : 4pm : Technofixes – a critical guide to climate change technologies

SPACE 1 : 6pm : Sustainable activism in the fact of the ecocrisis – Network of engaged Buddhists

SPACE 2 : 2pm : Fossil Fuel Economy – How the banks drive climate change – Platform

SPACE 2 : 5pm : Carbon Trading and Copenhagen – Business solutions at UN climate talks in Dec 09

SPACE 2 : 6pm : Debt and Climate Change : What the debt crisis in th global South means for climate justice – Jubilee Debt Campaign

SPACE 3 : 4pm : Transition – How we can make a rapid and just transition to a zero carbon economy… and why we have less than one hundred months to do it – New Economics Foundation