Copenhagen Climate Protest

This was one of the most exciting events I attended and yes it was the same protest where hundreds of demonstrators were detained on the streets for 6 hours, but I was lucky and didn't get caught up with that. I met up with the protest in one of the many starting points and as we moved on the different groups converged in route to the Bella center. I found it very surprising how many different people were there. They estimated 25,000 would show up but estimates guess that there were around 100,000 protesters in the demonstration. I was also surprised with how so many of the people weren't simply Danish but from all over Europe and the world. Many of these people in the march had come to Copenhagen to show their support for this issue even if they did not have access to get into COP15. Many of the climate activists are simply attending other side conferences like Klimaforum and they have come from equally far distances.

As for those demonstrators who were detained there are many rumors going around. Apparently there was one group of more radical protesters who wanted to break through into the Bella Center so the Danish police needed to stop this. These demonstrators we also wearing masks which apparently illegal in Denmark and gave just cause to detain them with a roadblock in the protest route. However many peaceful protesters also got caught up in this and were stuck out in the cold. One of the side events I attended later that day had one of the speakers come in late because he was stuck out in the street due to the roadblocks. It is a very interesting situation becuase in some ways the Danish police need to respond to more hardcore protesters but so many were peaceful protesters who had to be stuck within the mess. If you want to see my pictures from the parade you can follow the link below:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mramlow18/CopenhagenProtestMarch#