Activists hold protests over Paris climate agreement

DPA/Manila Hundreds of environmental activists took to the streets of the Philippine capital yesterday to protest the new climate accord signed by nearly 200 countries in Paris. About 1,000 protesters denounced the UN 21st Conference of Parties agreement as watered down and insufficient. “Negotiators have failed to come up with a long-delayed climate protocol that imposes obligated, quantified, and ambitious emissions cuts on industrialised countries and their Corps,” said Leon Dulce, leader of People’s Network for the Environment. Dulce said the agreement made no mention of mandatory emission cuts on polluter countries and “their highly pollutive industries on fossil fuel and mineral extraction, power generation, transportation and agri-industrial plantations.” Giovanni Tapang, leader of another environment group called AGHAM, said the pact did not even have concrete plans to address the needs of climate-vulnerable nations such as the Philippines. The activists urged popular movements around the world to “intensify actions” to oppose fossil fuel, extractive, and other aggressive development aggression projects across the world. “The future of our climate is in peril if we allow polluter countries and companies to run the world on its business-as-usual pathway,” Tapang said.