Canada Becomes Only Nation In The World To Withdraw From UN Desertification Convention

[hatrack]

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Mar 28 2013 (IPS) - Canada is pulling out of the United Nations convention that fights droughts in Africa next year, making it the only country in the world not participating in the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). Canada’s Stephen Harper government made the decision behind closed doors without consultation.

This follows another unexpected decision late last week to fold Canada’s aid agency CIDA into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. The CIDA decision was widely criticised by Canada’s development community for directly linking aid to trade.

Desertification and degradation of land is an enormous problem and getting worse with climate change, says Robert Fox of Oxfam Canada. “I’m gobsmacked Canada would do this,” Fox told IPS.

Each year, 12 million hectares of land, where 20 million tonnes of grain could have been grown, are lost to desertification. Land degradation is the world’s quiet crisis, undercutting food production, increasing water scarcity, impoverishing hundreds of millions of people and affecting two billion overall.

EDIT

http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/03/canada-pulls-out-of-u-n-body-to-fight-desertification/

[Demeter]

1. It could be a quiet vote of no-confidence in the methods

but given the right-wing government in charge of Canada at the moment, it's likely just being cruel.