Today is the last official day of the negotiations and I, along with the rest of Civil Society, am still unable to enter the Bella Center where hundreds of world leaders are gathering to determine the survival of millions of people.

As of Tuesday the United Nations started restricting access to non-governmental and non-press groups, severely limiting the transparency and inclusivity of the talks. This last-minute (though long rumored) announcement caught NGO groups off guard, forcing us to scramble and try to continue our work from cold attics, coffee shops, and improvised spaces with a spotty internet connection. Since few of us have been able to get in the Bella Center, large action to demonstrate support for the Island States, Africa and other constituencies deeply affected by the climate crisis has largely been hindered. Even Friends of the Earth, Avaaz.org, and other allies of ours have been blocked from entering the center despite having the special passes that were supposed to grant access:

But our persistance and commitment hasn’t wavered. A group of 40 international organizers spent Monday night planning an action to take a last stance inside the negotiating space. We pooled the few entry permits we were assigned and sent in 30 international youth on Tuesday. These 30 climate activists sat in the middle of the main hall and started reading the names of 11 million people from around the world that signed a petition asking for a fair, ambitious, and binding (FAB) deal. They set up a livecam and liveblog to show their allies all around the world the undemocratic processes of the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The young activists said they wouldn’t move until the negotiators would agree to a fair and binding deal, but where blackmailed by the United Nations Secretariat and forced to leave. The threat was that all 300 passes for Civil Society to attend would be rescinded if the protestors had chosen to get arrested. That is 300 passes out of thousands of people that came here to document and push the negotiations. Fearing backlash from other NGOs and not wanting to be scapegoated for the United Nation’s lack of transparency and undemocratic practices, the protestors left peacefully while encouraging their peers all over the world to organize solidarity actions wherever they are. We’ve already heard of a couple, and more are coming in every day.

At this time the negotiations aren’t going in the direction they need to be to guarantee the survival of human civilization. Despite the urgent threat, too many countries still seem incapable of accepting the dire situation we are facing. It is time for people in all countries to stand up. The energy action coalition just sent out an ask to the PowerShift list to organize sit-ins like the one that happened a couple of days ago at the Bella Center in their own senators’ offices. Only by scaling up our public pressure will we be able to push our governments to take survival more seriously!