Canada is “flying under the radar” at this year’s UNFCCC COP20 climate talks in Lima, Peru according to Canada 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” (INDCs) 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.”

The oilsands are Canada’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions. In October, Canada’s environment commissioner Julie Gelfand said the country has “no overall vision” when it comes to oil and gas regulations and as a result will not meet its 2020 international greenhouse gas reductions targets agreed to in Copenhagen.

In the House of Commons Harper also claimed “nobody in the world is regulating their oil and gas sector.”

“I’d be delighted if they did, Canada will be there with them. But we are not going to impose unilateral penalties.”

Harper’s comments add another layer of insight into the activities of Canadian negotiators in Lima who are actively skirting the issue of national responsibility by pointing fingers at other nations.

Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq told delegates at the climate talks Canada is interested in an agreement “that would see all major emitters commit to do their fair share.”

Dale Marshall, national program manager with Environmental Defence, told DeSmog that Canada “for the longest time has been trying to…talk about all major emitters to put everyone in the same boat.”

“On the one hand you could argue there are major developing countries that could do more, but from what I see in terms of historical responsibility countries like Canada have much, much greater responsibility to act and much greater resources to act and should take on greater commitments.”

“When you point at countries like China and India,” Marshall said, “you’re essentially deflecting blame and making it easy for Canada to stay with very weak targets.”

Christian Holz, international policy director with the Climate Action Network, said Canada has “maneuvered itself into a corner of insignificance,” at UNFCCC talks.

He said instead of talking about oil and gas regulations and growth in the oilsands, Canada is redirecting attention to a new commitment to reduce hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are used in air conditioning and heating.

“They decided to focus on one of the smallest areas of Canada’s emissions profile. HFCs account for about one per cent of Canadian emissions and the oil and gas sector is about 25 per cent right now. So of course, we’re not picking the right areas to focus on.”

Holz said this kind of diversion tactic isn’t even generating controversy within the negotiations or at home because “nobody’s really taking Canada seriously anymore.”

“I guess that’s why you don’t see the outrage that you would expect from bait and switches like that if Canada was considered a genuine participant in this global effort to address climate change.”

Loney from the Canada Youth Delegation said her group is putting effort into keeping the oil and gas sector relevant to Canada’s participation in the climate negotiations.

“We really want to talk about the oil and gas sector as a whole and that includes fracking. But we feel it’s important to highlight the tar sands as well,” she said. “We’re talking at a very high level at the UNFCCC and people know what the tar sands are here.”

Kelsey Mech from the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition and a member of the youth delegation in Lima said it’s important for their group to keep the pressure squarely on Canada.

“We’re linking the two worlds,” between Lima and Canada, Mech said, “trying to bring back to Canada what’s going on here.”

“One of the reason why it’s important for folks like us to be here is to put that pressure on internationally on our own government. They’re not going to bring something strong to the table internationally if there isn’t that pressure back home domestically.”

“We’re here to put tar sands back on the table.”

Loney added that this process benefits from being complicated. “They take climate negotiations to such a high-brow that it cuts people off.”

“It’s been important for me to bring these issues back down,” she added.

On Tuesday, Loney brought the question of the oilsands to the negotiations, asking Canadian representatives, “what can I bring back to my friends in Alberta? What can I take back to my friends in Fort McMurray and my friends in treaty territory that are dealing with the effects of living downstream of the tar sands?”

“These are real things that impact real people.”

Image Credit: Environment Canada via Twitter

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(WARSAW, Poland) — "I'm ashamed to tell anyone here I'm a Canadian. When they find out they say 'ohh we pity you'," said Leehi Yona, a 20-year old Montrealer who attended the UN climate talks in Warsaw, Poland.

"All Canadians would be outraged if they knew how Canada behaves on the world stage," Yona, a student at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, told DeSmog on the last day of the two-week negotiations. She's in Warsaw with the US Climate Action Network, a coalition of environmental groups.

"I'm determined to tell as many Canadians as I can what's happening in Warsaw."

About 12,000 people are involved in the climate treaty negotiations known as COP 19. At least 1,500 are members of environmental and civil society organizations. In a nutshell, COP 19 is step towards creating a new climate treaty by 2015 to keep global warming to less than 2˚ C and to help poor countries survive the mounting impacts.

There's little love for Canada in Warsaw. For two long weeks nations of the world have tried to come to grips with the climate crisis. Canada's representatives blocked and delayed progress, generating no small amount of anger from the Philippines, Bangladesh, African countries and small island states facing threats to their very existence.

"The international community has given up Canada. We're seen as a tragic story now," Yona said.

Even international environmental organizations can't be bothered to criticize Canada any more. After being judged the worst country at the last five UN climate meetings, Canada didn't even make the list. 

There were dozens of young Canadians in Warsaw. Most weren't even born when Canada was the leading international force in the 1980s and early 1990s, launching many environmental initiatives like the Rio Earth Summit in 1992.

"Canada has rarely spoken for itself in Warsaw," said Anjali Appadurai of Vancouver who is a youth representative working as a notetaker for the Third World Network. "When they do speak, it's to pay lip service to the COP process. There is a selfish arrogance and lack of respect," Appadurai told DeSmog. As an observer she has far more access since media are barred from witnessing most of the negotiations.

Appadurai is a COP veteran. As a college student in 2011 she delivered the  “Get it Done!” speech at the close of COP 17 in Durban, garnering media attention around the world. It was an echo of nine-year-old Severn Cullis-Suzuki's moving speech at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit.

Cullis-Suzuki received a standing ovation. Appaduari was banned from the COP 17 and future COPs for participating in an "unsanctioned protest" afterward.

National governments acting through the UN have increasingly restricted the role and activities of youth and participants from civil society at these meetings, she said. No posters. No flyers. No demonstrations except at pre-approved times in designated locations well away from the negotiations. When allowed to speak at official sessions, civil society organizations' speaking time has been cut in half to a single minute. 

At last year's COP 18 in Doha, Appaduari was allowed in after a week of appeals and a "Twitter storm" by civil society organizations. She had to sign a declaration promising to behave. Her participation this year was under similar circumstances.

"I had to sign a contract saying I will behave and not participate in any unsanctioned actions," she said.

In Warsaw three youth were banned for five years for holding up signs naming Filipino communities destroyed by super typhoon Haiyan. "It's getting a little bit scary. Youth and civil society are being pushed to the margins," Appaduari said.

That was one of the reasons why more than 800 members of environmental and civil society organizations walked out of the climate talks on the second last day of negotiations.

It takes a huge effort and expense for students to spend one or two weeks at a climate convention. "The UN tells us they want our voices here but no one listens," Yona said. "I came because I refuse to accept inaction on climate. We will have to live with the consequences."

Yona is making things happen. She's President of Green Schools Coalition of Montreal, an environmental advocate and organizer. Civil society organizations are shifting from an international focus to the local and expect to see an increase in community engagement around the world in 2014.

"I want to tell my children I did absolutely everything I could," she said.

A wide-ranging international coalition of youth is being created to help each other win battles in their local communities, Appaduari said.

"We want climate justice and to create a radically different future than the terrible one we're facing today." 

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Recent Environment Canada reports show that the Harper administration does not have the policies in place necessary to meet Canada’s existing environmental commitments, which have already been criticised as being the feeblest in the industrialised world. For instance, Canada was the only country to weaken its climate target under the Copenhagen Accord, and has since become the only country to formally withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol.  Even more concerning, according to the 2013 Climate Change Performance Index—a look at emissions levels, emissions trends, energy efficiency, efforts at renewable energy, and government climate policies of the world’s 61 highest CO2 emitting nations administered by the Climate Action Network—Canada ranked a dismal 58th, trailed only by Kazakhstan, Iran and Saudi Arabia, it was worst performance of any developed country by a long shot.

“At a time when institutions such as the World Bank and the International Energy Agency are calling for more climate action it is disappointing to have so many countries still being reluctant to move forward,” said Wendel Trio, Director of the European-based Climate Action Network and lead investigator for the 2013 Climate Change Performance Index, “Canada is a strong example of this lack of willingness to improve climate policies.”

“Canada has become the poster child for climate inaction, which represents a really long fall from where we were less than a decade ago,” added Patrick Bonin, Lead Climate-Energy and Arctic Campaigner at Greenpeace Canada. “It has been hard to watch the unraveling of a rational and reasonable approach to science, while at the same time seeing more devastating extreme weather impacts all around us, it just makes you wonder what it is going to take for this government to get it.”

“The world has had enough of Canada’s inaction on climate change," concluded Steven Guilbeault, Co-Founder and Senior Director of the Montreal-based NGO Equiterre, “It is clear that this government’s reckless fixation on the tar sands is going to cost us not only a safe and healthy future and economy for our children, but also our international credibility.”

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