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.