Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Yvo de Boer, announced today in Copenhagen that due to security reasons only 1000 people will be allowed access to the conference on Thursday. However, harsh protests have been sparked by the limitation of this number to 90 people on Friday. It means that 25,000 people will be denied access to the conference this day.
Such a decision results above all from the fact that the entire area will be filled with politicians and their entourage who will arrive for the last days of the conference. The most numerous delegations count even several hundreds of people. According to the Climate Coalition, such a solution is a downright violation of the rule of openness and a fair access to the decisions of the conference.
“We believe that by setting such severe limitations, Secretariat violates the right to a transparent and democratic negotiation process. Non-governmental organizations constitute one of the most important elements of control in a civil society. Thanks to monitoring actions taken by countries, they can inform the society about irregularities as well as provide authorities with recommendations concerning problem solutions. The absence of these organizations during the last and crucial day of negotiations means that the most important decisions will be made behind closed doors,” states Zbigniew Karaczun from the Polish Ecological Club Mazovian Branch, a member of the Climate Coalition.
What is especially outrageous is the fact that these limitations were introduced by United Nations - an organization thought to be the most important guardian of basic rights and freedom in the world. What is more, given the fact that Denmark has the best-developed sector of non-governmental organizations (90 percent of  its citizens belong to NGOs), introducing limitations in this very country seems to be even more inappropriate.