by Nina Somera, Isis International

Copenhagen, Denmark (14 October 2009) - The Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has just announced that less and less participants from civil society organisations (CSOs) will be allowed entrance at the Bella Centre in the coming days as heads of State arrive.

“For security reasons, we will limit the number of parties entering the Bella Centre,” Salwa Dallalah, Conference Affairs Coordinator said. On Tuesday and Wednesday, only 7,000 slots and 450 plenary seats will be given to CSOs On Thursday, only 1,000 participants from CSOs will be accommodated while 300 seats will be reserved for them during the plenaries. The numbers will be further reduced on Friday as only 90 participants from CSOs will be granted entrance to the Bella Centre.

The UNFCCC is also set to issue secondary badges, with these new logistics development.

This announcement did not sit well with CSOs. One immediately commented, “This is quite a serious process and civil society is being marginalised.” Gotelind Alber, the focal point of the Women and Gender Constituency asserted, “If people had known that they would not access the convention centre, they would have explored other ways to link up with this process. We are also worried for the small organisations that already had difficulty being here. It is likely that they would not be able to get in at all on Thursday and Friday.”

Nick Campbell of the International Chamber of Commerce Climate Change Task Force remarked, “For the future, there must be a system in place so that civil society must be in place up front. So that this would not happen again.”

Some also complained of the inadequate information that is coming out from the process. It was said that certain State proposals have not been uploaded on the UNFCCC website. Campbell said that webcasting the proceedings will be explored.

The limited slots for CSOs will be divided primarily through the constituencies that the UNFCCC has recognised.

The Bella Centre has a capacity for 15,000 people. However delegates already number 10,000 and the media, 4,000. One hundred ten heads of state are expected to be present in the high-level meetings beginning Thursday.

Today, long queues have developed outside the Centre as more participants arrive and security tightens. As of writing, the waiting time has been up to four hours in cold temperature.