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