Canada wins Colossal Fossil award for worst behavior in negotiations

The verdict is in, and Canada wins.

The Fossil of the Day Awards reached a climax today when Canada was awarded the Fossil of the Year award in Copenhagen.

While world leaders are still meeting in the final hours of negotiations, it is highly unlikely that a fair, ambitious and legally binding treaty will emerge from COP15. So today, civil society groups took time to name and shame the biggest obstacle to climate action for 2009.

Canada was chosen to receive the "Colossal Fossil" award based on votes by more than 500 members of the Climate Action Network, a global coalition of some 500 non-governmental organizations.

Ben Wikler of Avaaz.org announced the winner: "Fossil of the Year goes to CANADA, for bringing a totally unacceptable position into Copenhagen and refusing to strengthen it one bit. Canada's 2020 target is among the worst in the industrialized world, and leaked cabinet documents revealed that the governments is contemplating a cap-and-trade plan so weak that it would put even that target out of reach.”

"Canada's performance here in Copenhagen builds on two years of delay, obstruction and total inaction. This government thinks there's a choice between environment and economy, and for them, tar sands beats climate every time. Canada's emissions are headed nowhere but up. For all this and more, we name Canada the Colossal Fossil," Wikler said.