U.S. snubs Canada

Canadian Environment Minister Jim Prentice just finished his press conference and he dismissed the hoax press releases, saying "I am here to negotiate." The Minister's press people distributed a release for a photo-op of U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Prentice to occur shortly after the press conference, outside of the offices of the U.S. delegation.

I showed up there and noticed Steve Kelly, Prentice's chief of staff, having a raised voice exchange with a member from the U.S. delegation. The problem was the U.S. delegation hadn't given the green light for a photo-op, just for closed bilateral meeting between the two.

Over the course of 10 minutes, Kelly repeatedly asked the U.S. delegation official to reconsider, to which the U.S. delegation official replied, negative. When Kelly asked for this to be taken up the chain of command, the U.S. delegation official replied "it came from pretty high up. It's not going to happen."

The U.S. official said he didn't understand why the photograph was so important, to which Kelly replied "we were carpetbagged this morning by (environmental non-governmental organizations) with a false press release, I gotta change the story."

A second U.S. official showed up and was able to get permissions for a compromise, which was no public photo-op, but an official Canadian photographer could enter the meeting to take a shot."

It makes you wonder when the U.S. Secretary of Energy is embarrassed to have a public photograph taken with the Canadian Minister of the Environment.

Update to: Spoof Gets Real

I just confirmed the source of this morning's spoof press release, which has allowed fiction to stir up non-fiction (www.enviro-canada.ca/agenda2020).

The project is trademark Yes Men.

It also turns out that the Wall Street Journal Europe article was also a spoof, complete with non-related links that checked out as well. The url was http://online.europe-wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704201404574590453176996032.html whereas the real WSJ Europe page is http://europe.wsj.com/.

It turns out that there were several other spoof pages including the UN Cop page and the Uganda press release.

The Yes Men are a sophisticated group of culture jamming activists, who Wikipedia describes as practicing “identity correction” by pretending to be powerful people and spokespersons for prominent organizations. From their offices in Milwaukee, they create and maintain fake websites similar to ones they want to spoof, and then they accept invitations received on their websites to appear at conferences, symposia, and TV shows.

Spoof Gets Real

I am sitting in the press briefing room where Canadian Minister of the Environment, Jim Prentice, is meant to be showing up for a press conference. Outside Equiterre Head Steven Guilbeault and PMO spokesperson Dimitri Soudas are having a heated conversation.

The big news at the moment emanates from press release that was circulated this morning, ostensibly from Environment Canada. The release titled "CANADA ANNOUNCES NEW AGENDA FOR CLIMATE AND WORLD DEVELOPMENT," broke with current policy to announce two bold new commitments: cutting emissions by 40% below 1990 by 2020, and "committing Canada to much-needed funding to those developing countries facing the most dire consequences of climate change. [These] payments will begin with 1% and rise to the equivalent of 5% of Canada's GDP annually by 2030."

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) Europe filed a story based on the release titled, "Canada Announces Major Shift at COP15 Climate Summit. Declares new emissions reduction targets, outlines pilot program on adaptation financing for Africa." The story quoted the Ugandan spokesperson, who praised Canada's bold leadership. Quoted from the WSJ: “The big powers have had a very clear agenda of their own here in Copenhagen, and so far this has seemed to be more a meeting of a few rather than a global initiative," said Margaret Matembe, a spokesperson for the Climate Committee of Uganda, the environmental caucus in the Ugandan Parliament. "Canada’s new plan is a game changer.”

The problem is the press release is not real. Five per cent of GDP would be $65 billion per year that Canada would be sending over to developing countries.

The Uganda touch was nice though.

Dimitri Soudas reacted bitterly to the press release and angerily fingered Equiterre Head, Steven Guilbeault as the source.

On my way in to the press conference, Guilbeault ran over to me to explain what had happened, and for the record denied being the source of the spoof release and expressed disappointment that the government would finger him so publicly without even calling or e-mailing him. Guilbeault is demanding an apology from the Harper Government.

All for one, one for all

Why is climate change dominating the headlines like no other issue? Mid-way through the first week of the climate talks, my mind wandered back to last week’s climate change instalment of the Munk Debates, and I came upon the answer. Although science is foundation, it has escalated far beyond that. 

The Munk Debates brought together an interesting cast of characters to answer the question: “is climate change the defining challenge of our time and does it demand a commensurate response?”

On the Pro side were Elizabeth May, introduced as the Green Party Leader, and George Monbiot, the award-winning Guardian newspaper journalist, welcomed as the “Climate Change Activist.” On the Con side were Bjorn Lomborg, labelled the “Climate Change Expert,” (a bit of a stretch, considering he is a statistician who seems to make a living by taking the side of Big Oil and other dinosaurs), and Nigel Lawson, identified as “Best Selling Author,” (although of the four people on stage, he had sold the least books).

Dissatisfied by their titles, I came up with my own names for the four during the course of the debate:

Elizabeth the Evangelist

George for the Good-Fight

Nigel the Naysayer

Bjorn the Big-Coal Court Jester

Elizabeth made the point that none of them were qualified to actually debate the merit of the question as none of them were climate scientists. But that never seems to matter much. While the climate change discourse may at times seem bogged down in science, the forces lining up for and against have more existential axes to grind.

That’s because climate change is a unique conundrum for human civilization. Never before has there been a problem where our common fates were so intertwined on cause and effect. Climate change is the first global manifestation of the maxim made famous by Alexandre Dumas’ novel Three Musketeers: all for one, one for all. A destabilized climate will affect us all (cutting the human population down by 80 per cent if you believe James Lovelock pictured below), and it can only be avoided if we all join in the solution (if the rich world moves, and the poor world doesn’t, we are still pooched).

The stakes are so high and the solution so precariously dependent on collective action, that climate change arouses our animal spirits like nothing else. This goes to the heart of the public’s climate preoccupation, and is what inspires the passions of activists like Elizabeth May and George Monbiot, while scaring the jeepers out of conventional folks like Nigel Lawson and Bjorn Lomborg.

Bubbling below all the scientific charts and Al Gore PowerPoints, this planetary awakening foretells the uncorking of our collective moral consciousness. The prospect of which is highly destabilizing, and terrifies defenders of the status quo. And that’s the real reason why climate change is making the temperatures go up in more ways than one.

Will Copenhagen be bust or beginning of new chapter?

The nations of the world have convened the much anticipated Copenhagen climate talks, billed as the most important meeting since WWII.

Two days in to the 12-day negotiating marathon, how do things look?

That depends on who you talk to. On the “Nopenhagen” side (those who don’t think Copenhagen will deliver an effective compact), esteemed climate scientist James Hansen, who heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, is hoping the talks collapse in failure. The present Swiss-cheese cap-and-trade negotiating positions do not add up to what the atmosphere can safely handle. Better to start from scratch with a carbon tax, he says.

The respected U.S. environmentalist, Bill McKibben, is of a similar view (see Why Copenhagen May Be a Disaster).  He argues that climate change is not like other political problems where compromise can move things forward, because unlike racism, or inequality, which can be whittled down over time, climate change is about physics, which imposes a bottom line and time limit.

The Climate Action Tracker released this past Thursday by a group of European think-tanks, shows that all of the recent ‘bold’ climate commitments aren’t going to get us where we need to be. Emissions will continue rising to 2040, rather than peaking in the next 10 years. On this path, scientific opinion suggests that we will pass the 2 degrees Celsius mark, generally considered to be the crucial threshold for staving off the more catastrophic impacts of a wild climate.

On the “Hopenhagen” side (those who think Copenhagen can deliver an effective climate compact), Lord Nicholas Stern, author of perhaps the most widely referenced economic paper of the past decade (The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change), sounded a more optimistic note. He suggests that the major nations of the world are within stretching distance (72 per cent of the way) of bridging a deal that keeps temperature increases to less than 2 degrees Celsius, provided that rich nations follow through on financing for things such as forest protection.

On a pecuniary note, the Global Climate Prosperity Scoreboard showed while diplomats talk, money is walking — right into the green economy. Partly in anticipation of the ripples from Copenhagen, over US$1.2 trillion has been invested in greening the economy since 2007. Their modelling shows that if this trend continues for the next 10 years at the present clip, it may be enough to lay the foundations for climate-safe low-carbon prosperity.

We won’t get a clearer idea as to whether Copenhagen will be remembered as Hopenhagen or Nopenhagen until the world leaders begin to pour in on December 15^th.

On the bright side, President Obama has opted to join the final pressure cooker part of the negotiations, and at least 111 other leaders have also confirmed their attendance—even, belatedly, our own Stephen Harper.

Leaders are not likely to come home from such gatherings empty-handed. At a minimum, there will be a compendium of commitments. The litmus test for whether these commitments are exercises in saving face or a legitimate pretext for redefining the DNA of our global economy will depend on the presence of credible mechanisms to back-up the lofty commitments.

For the climate’s sake, here’s to Copenhagen shaping up as Hopenhagen.

(For anyone looking for a reliable summary debunking resurgent climate sceptics’ myths in the wake of some sloppy stolen e-mails from a UK University, check out this link.