Saturday, December 19, 2009

More photos from our second week in Copenhagen

From Alex Binford:

The King of Denmark -- leaving after a service on Sunday with Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Protests outside of the King's Palace and Gardens on Sunday.  These groups were protesting immigrant rights -- suggesting that Denmark should be more welcoming to immigrants.








On Monday night, we were able to see Al Gore and others speak in a small venue seating 140. Sarabeth (pictured here) asked the last question.





 Tuesday morning, before the sun was fully out, hundreds were lined up to enter the Bella Center. This was the first day of formally restricted entry for the NGOs (hundreds if not thousands weren't able to register the day before). Security was much more intense -- this is one of the water canon trucks prepared to take action if the crowd got out of control.




The Bella Center accommodates 15,000, and this hall was mainly used for the cafeterias and gathering places. There were also several impromtu mini-protests and press conferences.






At one point, many of the delegates marched out of the Bella Center in solidarity "with the people" who were outside.








Despite the excitement down the hall, work continued in the Bella Center.
It wasn't easy to get into the high-level plenary on Wednesday -- this was the crowd, and all had special pass.  After the first session, all NGOs were excluded, even if they had passes.

There were still some great speeches to be heard, though! Senator Kerry addressed about 500 people in the Hans Christian Andersen room.

This was our last formal event in the Bella Center on Wednesday. Only 300 NGOs were given special passes for the Thursday and Friday sessions.

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