Canada Takes 1st Place Fossil of the Day for Supporting a “Zombie” Kyoto
Cancun, Mexico – Canada earned the 1 place Fossil of the Day for only supporting
the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol if it didn’t have to take on any pollution
reduction commitments for itself. This is Canada’s fourth Fossil, and second 1st place
Fossil, at the Cancun negotiations. On Monday, it took all three Fossils for a year
spent weakening its greenhouse gas reduction efforts. Canada currently has earned the
most Fossils of any country in the Cancun climate change talks.
The text of the award reads:
“Canada earns the 1st place Fossil. Yesterday we learned two things about Canada and
Kyoto:
• The UNFCCC Executive Secretary named Canada as one of the countries not
willing to commit to a second phase of Kyoto here in Cancun
• A Canadian negotiator told Climate Action Network Canada that ‘no one is
trying to kill Kyoto.’
To you and me, that might sound like a contradiction. But upon investigation, it
turned out that Canada is perfectly happy to see Kyoto continue — it just shouldn’t
have any targets in it. In other words, the patient isn’t dead: she’s just had her heart
removed. This chilling vision of a ‘zombie Kyoto’ earns Canada a first place Fossil.”
About CAN: The Climate Action Network is a worldwide network of roughly 500
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) working to promote government and
individual action to limit human-induced climate change to ecologically sustainable
levels. www.climatenetwork.org
About the fossils: The Fossil of the Day awards were first presented at the climate
talks in 1999 in Bonn, initiated by the German NGO Forum. During United Nations
climate change negotiations (www.unfccc.int), members of the Climate Action
Network (CAN), vote for countries judged to have done their 'best' to block progress
in the negotiations in the last days of talks.