Canada Keeps Skirting the Oilsands Issue at the COP20 Climate Talks | Carol Linnitt.
Canada is “flying under the radar” at this year’s UNFCCC COP20 climate talks in Lima, Peru according to Canadian Youth Delegation member Brenna Owen.
Canada’s negotiators are working hard to sidestep the issue of the country’s growing greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector according to Owen, while simultaneously keeping quiet about the oilsands as nations come up with their “intended nationally determined contributions” in the global climate agreement.
“They’re not going to be able to do that much longer,” she added. “And they’re not going to be able to avoid talking about the tar sands.”
Aleah Loney, another member of the 10-person youth delegation, said the group is eager to push Canada’s ministers and negotiators to address the issue of oil and gas emissions rather than employing evasive tactics to avoid the concerns outright.
On Tuesday, as ministers and delegates from around the world continued to arrive at the climate talks to negotiate an internationally binding climate agreement, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the House of Commons he would not regulate emissions from Canada’s oil and gas sector.
“Under the current circumstances of the oil and gas sector, it would be crazy — it would be crazy economic policy — to do unilateral penalties on that sector,” he said. “We’re clearly not going to do that.”
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