COPENHAGEN -- Green groups on Friday named Canada "Fossil of the Year" -- an award that carried the additional honorific of "Colossal Fossil" -- for what they said was a strategy to sabotage efforts to tackle climate change.
"Canada's 2020 [emissions] target is among the worst in the industrialised world, and leaked cabinet documents revealed that the government is contemplating a cap-and-trade plan so weak that it would put even that target out of reach," said Climate Action Network International and Avaaz.org.
"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 nominate Canada for the Colossal Fossil."
Tar sands are a bitumen deposit, containing heavy oil, that has very high levels of carbon, which is released as a heat-trapping greenhouse-gas when burned.
The mock award is a colourful feature at the two-week annual conference of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
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