Green groups stage walk-out at UN climate talks
Source: Guardian
Members of NGOs walk out of United Nations Climate Change Conference in Warsaw.
Environment and development groups together with young people, trade unions and social movements have walked out of the UN climate talks on Thursday in protest at what they say is the slow speed and lack of ambition of the negotiations in Warsaw.
Wearing T-shirts reading "Volverermos" ["We will return"] around 800 people from organisations including Greenpeace, WWF, Oxfam, 350.org, Friends of the Earth, the International Trade Union conferation and ActionAid, handed back their registration badges to the UN and left Poland's National Stadium where the talks are being held.
Frustration with the climate talks has grown in the past two years but progress in this year's 'conference of the parties' has seen negiotiations deadlocked in technical areas, and rich and poor countries at loggerheads over compensation and money. Anger has also mounted over the perceived closeness of governments to industrial lobbies, and because several developed countries have reneged on their commitments to cut emissions.
Hoda Baraka, global communications director for 350.org, said they were walking out because lobbying from fossil fuel companies was impeding progress at the talks.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/21/mass-walk-out-un-climate-talks-warsaw
"You first. I promise I'll follow your lead, but don't include any enforcement mechanisms in an agreement to ensure that I do what I say I will do." About sums it up.
"young people, trade unions and social movements (Greenpeace, WWF, Oxfam, 350.org, Friends of the Earth, the International Trade Union conferation and ActionAid)" vs. "fossil fuel companies". Guess who's winning.