Protesters disrupted the U.S climate presentation for over seven minutes singing “So you claim to be an American, But we see right through your greed”. They then staged a mass walkout as the delegation continued with the briefing promoting coal and nuclear power at the UN climate summit in Bonn, Germany.
The outburst came after President Donald Trump's energy policy adviser George David Banks said in his opening remarks that the White House would support development of more efficient coal plants, as well as renewable and nuclear power. The briefing was titled “The Role of Cleaner and More Efficient Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Power in Climate Mitigation.” Really.
The lyrics of the song were transcribed by www.commondreams.org/... as -
So you claim to be an American
But we see right through your greed;
It's killing across the world
for that coal money.
And we proudly stand up and tell you to
Keep it in the ground;
The people of the world unite
and we are here to say.
Here is a video of the the U.S. presentation, which starts around the 4:06:00 mark. The protest song starts just after 4:08:00 and continues for over 7 minutes.
A short video of the singing -
“Excellent singing,” said Banks. “I think we should do Karaoke after this.” Ha Ha.
Banks and other panelists, including Holly Krutka, an official at U.S. coal company Peabody Energy, argued that coal will be with us for some time and it should be made as clean as possible.
Francis Brooke, an aide to Vice President Mike Pence, moderated the talk, which featured executives from the liquefied natural gas company Tellurian, coal miner Peabody Energy and nuclear power company NuScale.
Here are some tweets from the conference room -
The room was packed when the conference started, with people lined up outside. But got eerily empty when the protesters left!
The action was outside the conference room.
The summit in Bonn is the annual Conference of the Parties to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, shortened to COP23. Participants are focused on questions such as limiting the rise in global carbon dioxide output in coming decades and negotiating critical details of the Paris agreement.
American Leadership
Real America is being represented by Michael Bloomberg, Jerry Brown, Al Gore, Gov. Kate Brown, Terry McAuliffe, Sen. Ben Cardin and many others.
The U.S. Climate Action Center at COP23 -
The U.S. Climate Action Center pavilion is running with packed audiences.
Mayor Bloomberg is spearheading the U.S. efforts independent of the Trump admin.
Along with Gov. Jerry Brown.
Al Gore, keeps on going and going ...
Global Leaders
Pathway to 2C -
Images and Tweets from Bonn
Opening night celebrations -
France trolling the U.S. -
Fijians make the best presentations -
Protests and appeals -
Colorful protests and appeals -
The leaders -
A Challenge for the World -
The future is ours to make -
Further Reading
- 'Tobacco at a cancer summit': Trump coal push savaged at climate conference — www.theguardian.com/…
- Singing activists interrupt U.S. coal-focused event at United Nations climate conference — www.washingtonpost.com/…
- Protesters sing disdain for US climate policy at UN climate talks — www.theverge.com/…
- cop23.unfccc.int
- UN Climate Change — twitter.com/...