Activists ‘denied access’ to Poland for UN climate talks, green groups say
Poland’s deputy environment minister, Michal Kurtyka, said yesterday that he was in contact with the authorities over reports from campaign groups that at least 12 to 14 activists were refused entry to the country or deported while on their way to a UN climate change conference in Katowice.
Human rights experts said the reported barring of activists contradicted the spirit of the 2015 Paris Agreement on global warming, which entrenches the principle of public participation in action to combat global warming.
“There is a commitment to allow everybody who wishes to engage constructively in this discussion, to be part of it,” said Kurtyka, who is presiding over the negotiations, as demonstrators marched through the city streets demanding stronger efforts to tackle climate change.
“It is important that all the rules are being respected in a very constructive way,” he told journalists.
He did not confirm the reports about activists issued on Friday evening by international campaign groups 350.org and Climate Action Network International.
UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa said her office was trying to clarify information about the cases.
Green groups said those barred from Poland included people from Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan.
“We are hopeful and grateful for efforts by the Polish authorities to address this situation and ensure we can continue into the next week in the most inclusive atmosphere,” Espinosa said.
A spokeswoman for the Polish presidency of the talks told Reuters that some activists had been denied entry to Poland because they did not meet requirements or were on a list preventing them from entering Europe’s border control-free Schengen Area.
A Polish border guard spokeswoman said 161 people had been forbidden entry to Poland on Friday for many reasons, including a lack of correct documents and being on security lists.
She could not immediately say whether there was any connection to the climate talks in Katowice.
Earlier this year, Poland came under international pressure to allow activists to demonstrate freely at the UN climate change talks, and to protect participants’ privacy, after new legislation passed in January sparked fears over civil rights.
That legislation forbids spontaneous protests in Katowice during the talks, and allows police to collect personal data on delegates without their consent, according to Human Rights Watch.
May Boeve, executive director of 350.org, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that activists who wanted to come to Poland to help create solutions to climate change were being intimidated, detracting from the talks’ main purpose of stepping up ambition to tackle global warming.
She urged the United Nations to put in place conditions at the talks “where activists can come and be safe and do their work, and ... civil society can push government to do what we really need around climate”.
Vicky Tauli-Corpuz, UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous People, said the situation was “a total undermining of the Paris Agreement”, which calls for public participation to be enhanced and supported.
But the problem was wider, and included difficulties in enabling citizens around the world to take part in developing their countries’ climate action plans, she said.