Hoax highlights Canada’s poor position in Copenhagen

And we should be asking ourselves why, out of 192 countries, the satirists chose to highlight Canada’s intransigence.

Someone – and most likely the Yes Men – put out a fake press release purportedly from Environment Canada, along with a fake twitter from Environment Minister Jim Prentice, announcing that Canada was adopting a new climate plan with emission reduction targets in line with those recommended by scientists and that Canada would expand funding to poor countries struggling to deal with climate change.

Those in-the-know quickly realized that this wasn’t the real Environment Canada url (although it was an elaborate and convincing mock-up of the site), and were chortling that the hoax had taken in the Wall Street Journal. Except that web-site and story too, was a fake – a fact that appears to have slipped by a Canadian radio station that interviewed the fake reporter apologizing for his mistake (unless that story too is a hoax… it’s getting hard to keep track).

Another announcement – this time with video – came from the (fake) Ugandan delegation celebrated the shift in the Canadian position, even as another (fake) press release from Environment Canada (but this time with an almost-correct url) denounced the stunt (including for misleading the Ugandans).

The only real announcement so far came from the Prime Minister’s Office, who called the stunt a “childish prank” and accused Steven Guilbeault of the Quebec-based environmental group Equiterre of being behind it. Guilbeault denies it (video of the exchange here), and I believe him because I’ve known him for a long time and I don’t think his sense of humour is quite this warped.

The government then tried to ‘change the story’ by staging a photo op with US Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, but were rebuffed by the US delegation.

Personally, I’m a little sad that I wasn’t taken in even a little bit by this brilliant hoax, but after 15 years trying to get action on climate change I’ve trained myself to be most skeptical of things I wish were true. And I really wish this one had been true.

Keith Stewart, Ph.D.
Director, Climate Change