Climate activists demonstrate outside the negotiation hall.

Negotiators have proposed not to amend the Kyoto Protocol or create a new legally binding successor treaty under the convention, but rather aim at a “political agreement” as the outcome of this conference. The progress has led Tuvalu to propose halting the negotiation process.

Demonstrators, whose access to the plenary halls has been restricted, rallied in support of Tuvalu. They also threw their support behind a growing developing country demand that negotiators create a treaty limiting global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above industrial levels. Current projections suggest climate change could create an atmosphere up to three to four times as warm.

Tuvalu, a series of low-lying islands, faces the very real possibility that a cyclone or sea level rise will submerge their nation underwater. The United Nations does not recognize peoples without land.

“If their land disappears, their nation disappears,” said Fanny Heros of Alofa Tuvalu, a French solidarity group.

In the video, UN security guards record demonstrator’s names. They recorded mine, too, although I was only filming. Why? “You are involved,” I was told. My response: “You are involved as much as I am.”