The memo suggested that Environment Canada didn’t want its scientists to actively promote the assessment of “extreme events and disasters” being finalized last November in Uganda at a summit of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international partnership of governments that assesses peer-reviewed research on global warming.
“It is expected that there will be higher than usual interest in the report’s findings,” said the memorandum to Kent, dated Nov. 7, 2011, and released through access to information legislation.
“A communications plan recommending a low-profile, responsive approach for the 34th session of the IPCC is being prepared.”
A “responsive” approach would generally encourage officials not to publicly mention an issue unless prompted or asked by the public or the media.
An Environment Canada spokesman, Mark Johnson, said this approach was recommended since the communications were being led by the IPCC, and that member governments “typically undertake a responsive role” during the meetings.
The revelations from the memo, signed by Kent’s former deputy minister Paul Boothe, come as the government is staging a high-profile media event Wednesday featuring Kent, to suggest Canada is making progress in reducing the growth of greenhouse gas emissions that trap heat in the atmosphere and contribute to global warming.
The event promoting Environment Canada’s “emissions trends” report is expected to confirm recent research compiled by a soon-to-be-closed federal advisory panel – the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy – that suggested Canada was moving closer toward a national target set by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to reduce annual greenhouse gas pollution by 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020.
The advisory panel attributed the progress mainly to climate change policies introduced by provincial governments while warning that Canada would not be able to keep Harper commitments without significant efforts to address rapidly growing pollution from oil and gas companies. But its report, from June, suggested the country had moved halfway toward meeting its goal, an improvement from a previous Environment Canada estimate of being one-quarter of the way toward Harper’s target that was pledged as part of the 2009 international Copenhagen climate change agreement.
Environment Canada did not plan any public event to explain its contribution to the IPCC summit, even though the government sent six senior officials from three different departments to attend the Uganda conference last November. The conference, which also reviewed changes to the IPCC process in response to criticism about its integrity, endorsed a report concluding that record-breaking temperatures and extreme precipitation events were likely changing “on a global scale as a result of anthropogenic (human-driven) influences.”
But one Environment Canada scientist, Xuebin Zhang, was able to participate in a media conference call of experts that was organized by the Science Media Centre of Canada, an Ottawa-based charity that co-ordinates public events for reporters to connect them with Canadian academics who have published research. The centre’s executive director, Penny Park, said her organization was able to co-ordinate the event in advance, in collaboration with the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Research, by planning ahead.
“I really think that in this day and age, there has to be transparency and an open discussion of science,” said Park, in an interview. “It’s one of the elements of good policy making.”
Andrew Weaver, a climate change scientist who teaches at the University of Victoria, said he was disturbed to hear about the memo’s communications approach, which he suggested was attempting to keep Canadians in the dark about the impact of the fossil fuel industry and the pollution it causes.
“It just sort of confirms what everyone thinks – that there is a lack of desire (in government) to actually engage Canadians on this topic, because the topic may actually conflict with an agenda to continue business as usual to focus the Canadian economy around tarsands development,” said Weaver, referring to an industry that is considered to be the fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada.
Another internal Environment Canada document, leaked in 2010, suggested that government scientists felt “muzzled” by a new government communications policy restricting their ability to speak to reporters. The document also said that Environment Canada had observed an 80-per-cent drop in media coverage of climate change issues as a result of the new rules, introduced by the Harper government in 2007.
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Mike De Souza
No comments:
Post a Comment