The Yes Men shame Canada at Copenhagen

[GliderGuider]

How U.S. pranksters hoaxed the world at Canada's expense

A statement released online yesterday morning and publicized through a Twitter account in the name of Environment Minister Jim Prentice outlined Canada's ambitious new plan to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions.

Canada's "Agenda 2020" set a goal of a 40-per-cent reduction in emissions from 1990 levels by 2020. It was a dramatic change from the current goal of 3 per cent. It also created a new fund, for which Canada pledged a whopping $13-billion next year, to help developing nations deal with climate change.

The news lit up the Bella Center, the vast Copenhagen convention hall where the climate-change negotiations are taking place. A story popped up on an apparent European affiliate of The Wall Street Journal. In a video on what looked to be a UN site, a Ugandan official congratulated Canada for its change of direction after "holding a loaded gun to our heads."

Soon after, "Canada" renounced the announcement, saying it was a fake. Though this second statement was correct in identifying the first so-called announcement as false, it too was a fake.

The hoax was an elaborate series of fake statements and articles meant to draw attention to Canada's lagging emissions-reduction targets. It left Prime Minister Stephen Harper's staff scrambling to set the record straight.

The spoof news releases were set up on replica websites - cop-15.org instead of cop15.dk, for instance - and were all the work of notorious American spoof artists the Yes Men.

Good for them.

[Canuckistanian]

1. Yes indeed, good for them

I love to see the Harper govt. humiliated, especially over their deplorable record on climate change.

Now they're trying to use the (unpassed) Waxman-Markey bill to get an exemption for the oil sands emissions.