Canada Sweeps 1st Cancun Fossil of the Day Awards for Year of Climate Inaction - Monday, Nov 29
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Tag: Fossil of the Day
Canada Sweeps 1st Cancun Fossil of the Day Awards for Year of Climate Inaction
Submitted by MBrockley on
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Canada Sweeps 1st Cancun Fossil of the Day Awards for Year of Climate Inaction
Submitted by MBrockley on
Canada receives the 3rd place Fossil for a spectacular, year-long effort to regain its title of ‘colossal fossil’ as the country making the least constructive contribution to the negotiations.
In January, Canada backed off of a weak target to adopt an even weaker one, as part of the government’s plan to outsource climate policy to the United States. Canada’s plan to meet that target is, to put it nicely, still being written. And the guy they’ve just put in charge as Environment Minister is John Baird; COP veterans might remember him as the solo holdout against science-based targets for developed countries at the end of Bali.
Canada also receives the 2nd place Fossil. We’ve already heard that Canada doesn’t have a plan to cut emissions. What it does have is a plan to cut a lot of other things, such as:
- the only major federal support program for renewable energy
- a program funding energy efficiency upgrades for homeowners
- funding for Canada’s climate science foundation
- climate change off of the G8 and G20 agendas when Canada played host this summer, and last but not least...
- clean fuels policies in other countries. Internal government documents released today reveal that Canada worked to “kill” a US federal clean fuels policy to protect its tar sands, working with allies like the Bush administration and Exxon.
With friends like that, who needs clean energy?
Finally, Canada wins the 1st place Fossil. Some might think the US Senate wasn’t too helpful on climate change. But today’s Fossil winner has a Senate that makes the US look good, and not just because these Senators aren’t elected. In this country, Conservative Senators killed a progressive climate change bill without even bothering to debate it, something that hasn’t happened for at least 70 years. This leaves their country without a science-based target or any domestic transparency program for the 2020 target the government has brought to these talks. Where can we find that fossil-worthy Senate? In a shocking twist, it’s Canada again!
So Canada is starting off with a substantial lead, taking three prizes today. Killing progressive legislation, cancelling support for clean energy and failing to have any plan to meet its target all position Canada well for another two weeks of ignominy here in Cancun.
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About CAN: The Climate Action Network is a worldwide network of roughly 500 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) working to promote government and individual action to limit human-induced climate change to ecologically sustainable levels. www.climatenetwork.org <http://www.climatenetwork.org/>
About the fossils: The Fossil of the Day awards were first presented at the climate talks in 1999 in Bonn, initiated by the German NGO Forum. During United Nations climate change negotiations (www.unfccc.int <http://www.unfccc.int/> ), members of the Climate Action Network (CAN), vote for countries judged to have done their 'best' to block progress in the negotiations in the last days of talks.
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Fossil of the Day: New Zealand
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A fossil is awarded to New Zealand, as an ambassador for all Annex I Parties, for bluntly declaring that if they don’t get the rules they want on forest management, they’ll have to change their overall emission reduction target. Does this mean that the LULUCF sector is just a slush fund and Copenhagen pledges are open for renegotiation if the slush fund disappears?
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Tianjin 2010 ECO 6
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In this issue
- No time to Lose
- The EU Chooses
- LULUCF: The second agenda
- Fossil of the Day: New Zealand
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Fossil #1: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman
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First place fossil goes to these four Parties for risking the good faith and integrity of the negotiations by blocking all attempts to secure a technical review of the 1.5 target and suggesting that vulnerable countries use Google to get information that they need/want. They did this in the teeth of emotional pleas from vulnerable countries and numerous rounds of diplomatic efforts to reach a compromise.
Saudi Arabia even gave us a list of traded goods which would be in peril from a 1.5 target. See if you can spot which one is their true concern: rice, cocoa, tomatoes, coal, oil. (If you’re stuck, look up their chief export on Google.)
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Fossil #1: Saudi Arabia
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Saudi Arabia received the 1st Place Fossil for ingeniously linking carbon capture and storage (CCS) to reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation in developing countries. In today’s debate there was general agreement on having additional public funding for REDD; the Saudis said they would only consent if there were funding windows for all other mitigation activities, including CCS. That would not only mean that they can ‘compensate’ for emissions from the oil they produce, but also get money for it, holding REDD hostage in the process.
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Fossil #2: Russian Federation
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Russia received the 2nd Place Fossil for very significant weakening of its emissions reduction commitment from 25% to 15% of 1990 levels if land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) is not counted. The Russian president announced the 25% target as unconditional, but the Russian delegation converted this to being conditional in yesterday’s Numbers+LULUCF contact group. In addition, Russia’s proposal to account for LULUCF would hide huge quantities of emissions.
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Fossil #1: Saturday United States
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The US earns the Fossil of the Day for blocking the common space discussion on mitigation in the Ad Hoc Working Group for Long-term Cooperative Action yesterday. Failing to pass a strong climate and energy bill is keeping them from participating in cross-cutting discussions, like the one AOSIS proposed, to build a post-2012 agreement to reduce global warming emissions.
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Fossil #1: Monday Canada
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Canada was awarded First Place. Canada earns a Fossil of the Day for reducing its mitigation commitment after Copenhagen to the same level pledged by the United States of America. This January, Canada scrapped a 2020 target equivalent to 3% below 1990 in favour of one equivalent to 3% above 1990, using the rationale of following the U.S. Canada is endangering progress on post-Copenhagen targets by acting like the 51st US state.
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