Dublin, Ireland, Tuesday 13th December 2011, 00.50 hrs GMT

Canada dishes the dirt, reneges on Kyoto

Responding to the overnight announcement that Canada will join the USA in reneging on its obligations to the Kyoto Protocol, Pat Finnegan, Co-ordinator of Irish climate group Grian, said today that Canada was "dishing the dirt in an extraordinary sense" and "effectively applying to re-join the USA".

In a statement issued in Dublin early this morning, just hours after returning from two weeks attending the UN climate conference in Durban, Mr. Finnegan said today:

“Canada's announcement that it will be renouncing the Kyoto Protocol only confirms what has been obvious for years – Canadians are North Americans and North Americans seem to believe they live on a different planet from the rest of us. Like their cousins in the USA, Canada appears quite ready to carry on consuming low-quality, high-fossil energy goods and services as though there is no tomorrow, pile extraordinary amounts of waste greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and leave the rest of the world to pick up the bill for global warming. This is Canada dishing the dirt in a quite extraordinary sense. They are effectively applying to re-join the USA.”

Canada had spent the two weeks of the Durban climate conference dodging allegations that it was preparing precisely such a move, and attempting to convince developing countries and NGO's that it was nevertheless negotiating in good faith on a continuation of the Kyoto Protocol for a second commitment period after 2012, even though it has taken almost no action in meeting its target for the first commitment period of 2008-2012.

Over the past several years, Canadian government sources have previously frequently alluded unofficially to the fact that Canada ultimately had no intention of meeting its initial Kyoto commitments. Canadian emissions have risen by 33% since the baseline Kyoto year of 1990, while its target for the first Kyoto period was to actually reduce emissions by 6% by 2012.

At the end of the Durban conference more than 700 NGO's in CAN (Climate Action Network, including only full Irish member Grian) awarded Canada the "Colossal Fossil Award" for accumulating the most "Fossil of the Day" points for dirty negotiating tactics and unconstructive positioning during the talks. (Notes 1, 2)

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Further info, opinion, etc. contact: PAT FINNEGAN, (Co-ordinator, Grian):

Mobile:  + 353  86  856  8520

Note 1: (http://www.climatenetwork.org/fossil-of-the-day/new-zealand-earns-first-place-fossil-united-states-and-canada-share-%E2%80%9Ccolossal-foss)

Note 2: To climate negotiation insiders, North America's ultimate participation in an effective global response to climate change has always been in doubt. See:

http://www.rtcc.org/climate-change-tv/unfccc-videos/pat-finnegan-high-hopes-for-an-euchina-deal/