UN climate negotiators agreed to an investigation Friday after protesters smashed a sign emblazoned “Saudi Arabia” and dropped it in toilet. Many countries condemned the protest. Mexico's delegate Luis Alfonso de Alba, whose country will host the main climate talks in late 2010, said he was initiating an investigation by the UN Climate Change Secretariat. Pieces of the smashed Saudi Arabia sign – about 30 cm and placed on a table to identify the delegation during negotiations – were dropped in a toilet and then photographed, delegates said. The pictures were then put up on some walls. “This is a serious incident. We should fully support that the secretariat should carry out an investigation and the result should be informed to the parties,” Chinese delegate Su Wei said. Lebanon's delegate also said that the Saudi flag was abused during a protest in the conference. Country after country stepped up to condemn what they called an assault on tolerance and on a fellow member of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Muslim nations in particular noted that the flag carried in Arabic the Islamic declaration of faith. These are “religiously significant words,” the representative for Kuwait said. “These are values that are common to all Islamic states,” said Jordan. Mexico, which is presiding over the UN climate talks this year, promised it would thoroughly investigate the incident. Climate Action Network (CAN), a coalition of green activists, said it too condemned the vandalism. “Emotions are running high... these emotions appear to have led to an incident,” it said. The incident touched on the presence of non-country “civil society” delegates who are also allowed to attend meetings of the 194-nation UNFCCC. “Civil society” includes a broad range of interests, from radical environmentalists to promoters of clean energy technology and groups that campaign on ethnic and gender issues. Chinese representative Su Wei drew a parallel with the incident in Bonn and the leaking to the press of closed-doors discussions that took place at the ill-starred Copenhagen climate summit last December. “The secretariat should also investigate this incident,” said Su. “These incidents are of the same serious nature.” The 12-day UNFCCC talks, the latest staging post in the journey towards a hoped-for post-2012 climate treaty, took place in the Hotel Maritim, in the former West German capital of Bonn. The venue for climate talks is officially United Nations territory for the duration of the meeting and placed under tight security.
