Champagne and Climate Change

Canadian Youth Delegation "celebrates" Canada's negotiations at COP17

by Tim McSorley

The Canadian Youth Delegation held a "celebration" today in honor of the Canadian government's negotiating at these past two weeks at the UN's climate change negotiations in Durban, South Africa.

The group of 18 youth have been a constant critical presences at COP17 these past two weeks, taking any and all opportunities to voice their concern about a Canadian negotiating strategy they say is more in line with oil sands developers and oil companies than with ordinary Canadians and, especially, Canadian youth.

"We obstructed Canada's neogtations once again," said one "negotiator," popping a bottle of champagne. "Our sponsors will be so proud!"

"Here, here! To new tar sands developments and weak climate deals!" proclaimed the second. Both were sporting the BitumensWear suits that the delegation launched last week.

The confererence took a serious turn following the satire, when Daniel T'seilie, a young Dene from Fort Good Hope, NWT, and Tasha Peters, from Calgary, AB, gave their assessment of the Canadian government's work at COP17.

"Hundred of thousands of people already die each year from climate change," said T'seilie. "It will only grow worse.

"As an Arctic Indigenous person, I know how climate change devastates cultures and destroys communities." He gave as an example that a Dene community in NWT saw a record high this past week of 16 degrees celcius, 30 degrees above normal and, on that day, the warmest place in Canada, on par with Phoenix, AZ.

Peters added that Canada "refuses to be a productive player at these negotiations," charging that "the interests of the fossil fuel industry have come first. This is precisely why all of our letters, policy reports, and heartfelt lobbying have fallen on deaf ears. Listening to the voices of my generation is not one of my governemtns priorities," she said.

Peters and T'seilie also commented on the CYD's next actions, the announcement of a new $9 billion tar sands development in northern Alberta, and on Environment Minister Peter Kent's announcement yesterday that Canada may agree to a binding climate change agreement - albeit not a second phase of the Kyoto Protocol - by 2015.

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