IAC Statement in Solidarity with the Protests in Copenhagen

Stop Police Brutality in Copenhagen!
Release ALL Arrestees!
Shut Down the Pentagon - the World's Largest Polluter!

The International Action Center stands in solidarity with the thousands of activists from across the globe who are protesting at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. We condemn the acts of police brutality, including use of chemical weapons and the preemptive arrests of more than 1,000 people. We demand the release of all who have been arrested.

The criminals in Copenhagen are not the activists who are in the streets demanding real solutions to the growing climate change crisis. The criminals are those politicians and the corporations they represent, motivated exclusively by the pursuit of profits, who are unable and unwilling to address the causes of climate change. There is a growing consensus among scientists that we must reverse the global growth in greenhouse gas emissions before 'runaway' climate change becomes uncontrollable. Rather than finding ways to address this crisis, U.S. and Western delegates and Wall Street bankers are discussing how to profit from climate change, by constructing a massive international speculative market buying and selling carbon emissions. These “Cap and Trade” schemes will allow major corporations to profit from their pollution.

The biggest climate criminal on the planet is not even allowed to be discussed at the Conference. By every measure, the Pentagon is the largest institutional user of petroleum products and energy in general. Yet the Pentagon has had an blanket exemption in all international climate agreements since the Kyoto Accords.

The Pentagon wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; its secret operations in Pakistan; its equipment on more than 1,000 U.S. bases around the world; its 6,000 facilities in the U.S.; all NATO operations; its aircraft carriers, jet aircraft, weapons testing, training and sales will not be counted against U.S. greenhouse gas limits or included in any count.

The climate talks will not solve the climate crisis, nor are they intended to. These talks provide a cover for politicians to pretend to address the crisis while conspiring to increase profits for the corporations they serve. The pretended debate over climate change and global warming at the Copenhagen Conference is a struggle among the national corporations for their own interests.

The best way to immediately clean up the environment is to shut down the Pentagon. What is needed to combat climate change long-term is a thoroughgoing system change - a change that puts people and the climate ahead of the blind pursuit of profits.

For updates and information on the protests in Copenhagen, see: http://indymedia.dk/

For more on the criminal role of the Pentagon in climate change, see: www.IACenter.org