Saturday 12 December 2009
Saturday started out really early with Phoebe, Fern and me heading over the Bella Centre at 8am to protest in the NGO Protesting Area 1. Gemma, being the amazing person she is, organised for the youth to do a forest choir for all the negotiators who were walking in. We dressed up as elves and as we were getting ready, Penny Wong and her advisers (I assume) walked by and it looked like they were laughing at us!
Belting out a Christmas tune on a Saturday morning never felt so good!
Bruno, one of the English boys in the group, dressed up as our koala and we sang from 8-9am. We got a lot of people stopping by for photos and a couple of delegates who took our youth declarations which was good!
At 9, we decided to be an (unauthorised!) wandering choir and headed over the main hall to sing again. We got great photos in front of the globe with us pointing at Australia and Bruno practically passed out from heat exhaustion.
The AP came, as did the Algeria news which was great in terms of media.
Gemma and Fern say hi! We used the Global Witness Stall as our base where we kept our clothes, bags, koala heads, etc.
I had a bit of a feed from free side event food and then Fern and I headed into town for the big protest.
Santa's elves off for some spirited protesting!
Oh what a beautiful (and polluted) morning, oh what a beautiful (and polluted) day, I have a wonderful feeling, everyone's going to a protest
We met up with a Danish Rainforest Group and it was lovely having some Danes show us around town as we walked down Stroget to get to the protests.
Ready to march!
The rally was enormous! There were people from everywhere it seemed. There was climate change deniers; Greenpeace handing out free, enormous placards, media, dancers, Aussies singing "Come on Aussie come on, come on". We were a group of elves and a parrot.
Dancing in the protest streets! There was a wonderful vibe amongst all the protestors. Everyone was in a friendly mood! This was particularly cool because the music was being run through solar panelled power, on a bicycle!
One group which was very prominent throughout the whole conference was the "Save the world, become a vegetarian" group. In theory, it is a really great campaign but their constant, unchanging presence and harassment at the metro station led to people switching off in the end.
Come on Rudd, come on, come on! Aussies in Copenhagen protest against Australia's weak stance on climate change.
There were many Indigenous groups marching together at the protest as well as non-Indigenous people who were carrying Indigenous peoples' flags.
Media much? There was media everywhere! From global newspapers to lone reporters and bloggers, the media presence at the protest was very strong.
The deniers strike again! It's not global warming guys. It's climate change.
Face off! Believer v. denier. I wonder who will win?
It seemed that everyone was trying to outdo each other in magnitude. I must admit though, that is the biggest snowman I've ever seen!
I was so exhausted so I headed home before the protest started walking to the Bella centre and I had a nap. Woke up and went to meet Linh and Linh. Had a great night, aside from the fact my wallet and phone were stolen!
With Linh and Linh, my two Danish friends I met in my gap year to China. We went to Hopenhagen to check out the bicycle powered Christmas tree!
And the night continues! It was Danish through and through with Danish drinking games and Danish pear cider - yum!
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