Canada picks up two Fossil of the Day awards on Day 5 of Copenhagen

After making it through Thursday (December 10) without getting a Fossil of the Day award at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, Canada picked up two of them today (December 11).

Toronto mayor David Miller attended today’s award ceremony to pick up Canada’s second first-place trophy of the conference and to call on the Stephen Harper government to back a “fair, ambitious and binding deal”.

Canada also took second place today. The European Union garnered third place.

The Fossil, awarded by the Climate Action Network, is a dubious honour reserved for countries that do the most to delay and disrupt negotiations toward a global agreement on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

So far, Canada has received the most Fossils at the conference, with a total of four.

A post on the Fossil of the Day Web site notes that Canada won the “double dishonour for doing the most to obstruct progress in the global climate talks today”.

The post explains:

SECOND PLACE: CANADA

Canada’s chief negotiator insisted in a briefing this morning that his country’s target of -3% below 1990 are, in fact, based on science. The price quote–in answer to a question, was: “Yes, Canada’s targets are science-based. Absolutely, yes.”

Last we checked, the IPCC scientific community called for 25-40% emission reductions below 1990 levels. The Fossil Supreme Command Council can only conclude that he wasn’t referring to climate science at all, but rather the science of mathematics–because -3% is, indeed, a number. (Although a very small one.) Speaking of math, Canada already promised in the Kyoto Protocol to go to -6% from 1990 levels. Oops!

Further, when the chief negotiator was asked this morning if he believed Canada’s so called “science based-target” would protect melting summer sea-ice in the North West passage, he responded quite accurately that he is not a scientist and therefore cannot predict sea-ice. Canada, here’s a piece of science you can understand: you’ve won the second place Fossil Award.

FIRST PLACE: CANADA

It doesn’t get much clearer than this: Canada’s Environment Minister, Jim Prentice, said yesterday that, quote, “it’s in Canada’s interests to replace the Kyoto Protocol with a new agreement.” He didn’t explain whether that’s because he’s scared to face Kyoto’s compliance committee

It also appears that Canada’s environment minister is suffering a serious case of CAN envy. Yesterday, he invented his own prize, the Hot Air of the Day Award, and tried to give it to a Canadian environmental group. It’s a true honor to be recognized for hot air by this government, the world’s acknowledged masters in that area. But even though imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, we’d be even more flattered if you actually signed on to a fair, ambitious, and binding deal instead of trying to wriggle free of the climate promises you’ve already made and broken.

Canada previously received the first-place Fossil on Wednesday (December 9).

On Tuesday (December 8), Canada was featured in a group of non-European Union industrialized countries that took second place in the Fossil awards. That group also included Iceland, Japan, Kazakhstan, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, Ukraine, the United States, and Australia.

Canada garnered the third-place Fossil on Monday (December 9), the opening day of the Copenhagen conference, also known as COP15.

The country was named Fossil of the Year in 2007 and 2008.

This weekend will see actions aiming to send a message to world leaders take place across the planet.

In Vancouver, an event will be held at the Vancouver Public Library's central branch on Saturday (December 12) from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The event will feature a panel discussion, message wall, speakers, music, kids' stuff, vigil, and more.

You can follow Stephen Hui on Twitter at twitter.com/stephenhui.