Harper gets diplomatic spanking over climate policy

A Canadian delegate to a UN climate change conference in Bonn, Germany endured a bruising round of questioning Thursday over the Harper government's policies on carbon emissions and the oilsands.

The Montreal Gazette:

Ottawa — Foreign diplomats bombarded Canadian climate change negotiators with questions Thursday in Bonn, Germany, as they challenged the Harper government's transparency and policies to fight global warming.

In the wake of media coverage highlighting missing and conflicting information in an Environment Canada submission to the United Nations, officials from Australia, China, Lebanon, the United Kingdom and the Philippines questioned government policies regarding fossil fuel subsidies and the Alberta "tarsands," a lack of investment in clean energy and the scientific evidence used to determine its greenhouse gas emissions target.

The not-so-diplomatic discussion took place during a United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiating session. Canada is one of about 200 members of the treaty, which calls on its members to stabilize the concentration of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere to prevent dangerous changes to the earth's climate and ecosystems.

"I was also struck that the colleague from Canada didn't refer to the tarsands issue or at least only once in passing," said Peter Betts, the lead European Union negotiator and a director at the United Kingdom's Department of Energy and Climate Change, during the session. "This has been an issue featured much in the press, and I know there have been allegations from the press that the emissions from that sector have not been included in Canada's inventory (report submission to the UN)."

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