Conference, Canada in Disarray as Second Week Begins

As Week Two began at the Copenhagen Climate Conference, confusion reigned as numbers exploded, positions entrenched and pressure mounted.

COP15 Stalls

Fresh from a weekend of an enormous peaceful climate march (where a minority, but sizable number of people were arrested) over the weekend, the conference talks continued to be stalled on key issues dividing rich and poor countries with two key issues of contension: whether or not to maintain keep or scrap the Kyoto Protocol after its 2012 expiry date; and how much industrialized countries should aid the developing world in financing the low-carbon transition.

Though speaking together in one voice, it was clear that cleavages within the bloc of developing countries were still significant as all high-emissions countries within the Kyoto Protocol (Canada, China, India and Brazil included) continued to resist attempts by a group of developing countries - including small island nations and many of the poorest African and Latin American countries - to commit to a more significant reduction of climate change - a 1.5ºC rather than a 2ºC increase over pre-industrial levels.

Numbers Increase

Adding to the confusion in the conference hall, this week saw an enormous increase in the number of attendees; with lineups 3, 5, even 9 hours long to get conference accreditation, forcing police to temporarily shut down the Bella Center Metro station.

Conference organizers had accredited far more people than the building could handle and, starting Tuesday, began limiting the number of observers - including all environmental, business and educational groups.  With world leaders arriving this week with their enormous entourages (read who will be representing Canada here), conference organizers announced a quota system, limiting the number of non-governmental organizations to 7000 for Tuesday and Wednesday, 1000 for Thursday and a rumoured 90 NGOs - to represent the entire world - for the final Friday date.  Tens of thousands of accredited conferenciers will join thousands of activists and businesspeople in Copenhagen's hotels, bars, cafes and snowy, bike-filled streets to watch the final hours from outside the center.

Canada Marginalized

Meanwhile, while the National Post applaudingly published the self-analytical thoughts of a former climate skeptic back home, there was another drubbing of Canada's position in Copenhagen.

Monday afternoon saw the beginnings of an elaborate hoax perpetrated by the Yes Men at Canada's expense, releasing a fake press release from the Canadian government committing Canada to significant emissions reductions.  Canada was promptly "congratulated" by Uganda, with the entire story "picked up" by the Wall Street Journal.  But all of these were also spoof sites.

A momentary wave of amazed disbelief wafted throughout the conference center, quickly put out by a swift and angry response by the "Government of Canada" on the site ec-gc.ca (rather than the official ec.gc.ca).

"The idea was to confuse the Canadian government, which set up a war room to positively spin their position in the debate even though everyone here knows that their position is a cruel joke," Yes Men member Mike Bonanno told the Associated Press.

It seemed to have worked.  The Prime Minister's spokesman here was seen being frustrated by Equiterre's Steven Guilbeault and writers for the Toronto Star reported Jim Prentice's people pressured the President's Energy Secretary on a photo opportunity to 'change the story' away from the hoax to have media focus instead on a meeting between the MInister and one of Obama's top advisors.

With Tuesday morning's apparent leak that the federal government's draft rules for oil and gas development may negate any emissions reduction commitments made in Copenhagen, it seems that civil society's goal in embarassing the federal government will minimize Canada's role in official negociations.

(cross-posted on howiechong.com)