The climate rally scheduled during Paris’s COP21 will not take place in Ostend on November 29th in the end, for lack of police personnel to supervise the event, revealed the office of Alderman Johan Vande Lanotte on Wednesday. The alderman explains that local police forces were advised on Tuesday evening that their available officers were needed for security operations relating to a European summit in Brussels on Sunday. “There will not be enough officers remaining in Ostend to monitor and secure the climate rally, especially considering other regular police tasks must also be fulfilled,” added Johan Vande Lanotte in a press release.
The alderman is sorry about the situation but says “he has no choice.” The rally was originally meant to take place in Paris in collaboration with the large “climate march” aiming to encourage heads of state meeting for COP21 to reach a strong agreement limiting climate change. But terror attacks in the French capital on November 13th led to the event’s cancellation. Climate Change Coalition and Climate Express were planning to take almost 10,000 Belgians mobilised for the event. The two organisations announced over the weekend, that they had reached a tentative agreement with Ostend’s authorities to organise a symbolic action there instead of in Paris.
(Source: Belga)
