Kumi Naidoo and Greenpeace Activists Removed From COP17 and Banned From Building

He, along with nine other Greenpeace activists, four of whom are from Greenpeace Africa, has had his UN accreditation badge removed, meaning he cannot re-enter the site during the remainder of the UN climate conference.

This afternoon Kumi joined scores of campaigners from across the world at a protest in the conference centre, outside the plenary room.

During the protest he accompanied Dr Mohaemmed Shareef Environment Minister from the low-lying island country of the Maldives. After over two hours, along with over a hundred people from many different groups including 350.org, Friends of the Earth, AVAAZ, he was escorted out the conference.

Before being taken out Kumi said:

“We are here to stand with the most vulnerable countries whose basic survival needs have not been met by the men and women in that conference hall. We are here to call upon government minsters to listen to the people and not the polluters. The United States delegation is right now organising, line-by-line, the means by which United Nations member states will be eradicated from the map. We will not tolerate this.”

After being thrown out Kumi added:

“While people calling for urgent action to protect the climate and save lives have been thrown out, it is a brutal irony that the US delegation continues to have free reign to continue obstructing any progress. I ask the proud American people, in whose name this is being done, to take just a moment today to consider what they would do if they learned that a conference of powers was plotting to wipe their great nation off the map, because for low-lying islands that is the future they face.

“But the United States has allies here, and they are not inconsequential. Obama’s delegation can only destroy this conference if other big polluters join them. I make an appeal here to those nations, do not stand with the U.S. delegation, stand with us, stand with the nations facing eradication.”