Mexico City, Feb 5 (IANS/EFE) Greenpeace staged a protest in this Mexican capital to press demands for an effective climate-change treaty, occupying the fountain that famed artist Diego Rivera dedicated to Tlaloc, the Aztec god of rain.
Amid a torrential downpour, unusual at this time of year in Mexico City, Greenpeace activists draped a banner with the message “Help! Treaty Needed to Save the Climate. Now!” over the sculpture of Tlaloc, feared by Aztecs as the bringer of floods and drought.

The coordinator of Greenpeace Mexico’s climate campaign, Gustavo Ampugnani, told EFE that his organisation considers the recent climate-change summit in Copenhagen, the predecessor of the one set for December in the Mexican resort city of Cancun, to have been “a failure”.

In that regard, the group said that the commitments to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions that 55 countries submitted to the UN by an end-of-January deadline are “the same goals already stated prior to Copenhagen”.

“The only certainty that came out of Copenhagen is that the planet’s temperature could rise by three or more degrees, which would generate climate-change impacts that are irreversible and very strong in magnitude,” he said.

Regarding the police deployment in the Danish capital, where the director of Greenpeace Spain, Juan Lopez de Uralde, spent 20 days in prison, Ampugnani said that he does not expect such a strong reaction by the Mexican government in Cancun and that his organisation plans to continue “exerting pressure”.

“We trust that Mexico will play a positive role in presiding over this summit, unlike the Danish (government),” he said.

–IANS/EFE

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