Cancun: Activists take their protest underwater

Cancun: Activists took to the streets of Cancun vandalizing fast food restaurants and throwing muck in the streets. Activists from around the world have been gathering in Cancun to urge governments to take action against global warming.

Some activists even went under water to register their protest alongside 400 life-sized statues to highlight the danger posed by rising sea levels. The climate talks will continue till December 10, seek a pack of measures including ways to share clean technology, protect tropical forests that store carbon and help the poor adapt to the impact of climate change.

Activists staged an unusual protest at an underwater museum in Mexico's Caribbean Sea to demand action from UN climate talks on Sunday as talks entered their second week.

Young activists, dressed in every day clothes, dived among 400 life-size casts submerged off the resort of Cancun at a "Subaquatic Museum."

The activisits from Mexico, China, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, US, Vietnam and the Philippines dressed in suits, jeans and dresses to show the threat posed by rising sea levels.

A spokesperson from 350.org, Vanessa Dalmau, said art could convey the message better than science.

"Back home in Dominican Republic we're facing this threat directly, our beach is already eroding, so many people are going to be affected and I think art conveys a message differently than science does," she said.

Brady Bradshaw, from the Greenpeace US student network, said the protest was to show the dangers posed by rising sea levels. "When diving with these statues that were built to live underwater, to highlight the fact that real people can't live underwater yet 100 million people are more threatened by sea-level rise and governments in Cancun must make the right choices to protect the climate and protect ourselves."

The November 29 to December 10 climate talks seek a package of measures including a new fund to channel aid to developing nations as well as ways to share clean technology, protect tropical forests that store carbon and help the poor adapt to the impact of climate change.

A treaty is out of reach after a 2009 summit in Copenhagen Summit fell short of a legally binding deal to avert what UN climate experts say will be droughts, floods, heatwaves and rising sea levels caused by a build-up of greenhouse gases.