COP15

Update Jan5,2009: Two climate prisoners released but still facing charges

Danish authorities are continuing to detain an Australian, Friends of the Earth activist Natasha Verco, for a third week since the Copenhagen climate conference. She will appear in court in Copenhagen on Monday January 4th 2010.

Forty climate activists have closed down the rail line into the world's biggest coal port this morning, (Sunday December 20) protesting the failure of the UN climate talks in Copenhagen to produce a just, effective, and legally binding treaty.

Twenty five of the diverse group - aged from 19 to 86 years and including a Buddhist priest, and an elected local councillor - are occupying a rail bridge in Newcastle, Australia, and refusing to leave. They have hung large banners reading "Greed wrecked Copenhagen: Now it's up to us all", and "You could have done something great."

Climate negotiations in Copenhagen ended with a whimper and some chaos in the final plenary. 119 national leaders attended the Copenhagen climate talks but the final 'agreement' (PDF) announced by the US, India, China and South Africa, was drafted far outside the consensus process of the United Nations and amounted to only aspirational targets and promises, falling far short of an ambitous, fair and binding treaty demanded by civil society.

Australia one of the worst Climate Fossils in Bullying small island States and also in Financing Adaption | UN Leaked Document verifies world heading for 3 degree plus temperatures | ClimateIMC: Climate Colonialism: Clinton's $100 billion in funding comes with colonial strings | Perth IMC: Copenhagen sham: the Empire reveals its nakedness in the land of Hans Christian Andersen

A leaked draft UNFCC document dated 15th December shows that current committments of emissions reductions "remain on an unsustainable pathway that could lead to concentrations equal or above 550ppm with the related temperature raise around 3 degrees C.".