By Solana Larsen
The Canadian government supposedly released an angry statement today, denouncing a spoof that supposedly made it as far as the Wall Street Journal claiming that Canada had shifted its policy and would be agreeing to greenhouse gas reduction targets and drafting a plan for a climate adaptation fund for developing nations.
In fact, it looks like all of it is phishy, including the Wall Street Journal article (note, the URL is europe-wsj.com and the writer seems non-existent). According to Jason Linkins at Huffington Post the denouncement itself is also a spoof. Confusing things further, it appears there is even a third fake release that has been sent to apologize for the confusion, leaving many people wondering what is real and what is not.
There’s still no official confirmation of who is behind the prank, but it closely resembles previous actions by The Yes Men, who’ve earned global notoriety for publicly humiliating corporations and governments, often by putting out false statements in their name.
A spoof website called www.enviro-canada.ca explains Canada’s new supposed policies.
Spoof Canada website
According to the fake denouncement, the Canadian government was especially frustrated that the news of their change of heart had been met so positively by developing nations at the United Nations Climate Change Summit (COP15) in Copenhagen. They provided a link to a video of an impassioned statement by Margaret Matembe, MP and member of the Climate Committee of Uganda (a non-exitent person) with a fake Canadian official sitting by her side.
Although the website where the video is posted appears very official it has a different URL (cop-15.org) from the actual United Nations website (cop15.dk). Whoever is behind the spoof, is effectively playing on the disbelief that many activists already feel at the failure of world leaders to take definitive action on climate change.
A clever spoof – fake Ugandan delegate makes impassioned statement