It's all about the optics

Following yesterday's Yes Men hoax, in which Canada's position on greenhouse-gas emissions was mocked, the country's minister of the environment seems to have become a persona non grata. At least, that's how it looked to a Toronto Star blogger reporting from Copenhagen:

Canadian Environment Minister Jim Prentice just finished his press conference and he dismissed the hoax press releases, saying "I am here to negotiate." The Minister's press people distributed a release for a photo-op of U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Prentice to occur shortly after the press conference, outside of the offices of the U.S. delegation.

I showed up there and noticed Steve Kelly, Prentice's chief of staff, having a raised voice exchange with a member from the U.S. delegation. The problem was the U.S. delegation hadn't given the green light for a photo-op, just for closed bilateral meeting between the two.

Over the course of 10 minutes, Kelly repeatedly asked the U.S. delegation official to reconsider, to which the U.S. delegation official replied, negative. When Kelly asked for this to be taken up the chain of command, the U.S. delegation official replied "it came from pretty high up. It's not going to happen."

The U.S. official said he didn't understand why the photograph was so important, to which Kelly replied "we were carpetbagged this morning by (environmental non-governmental organizations) with a false press release, I gotta change the story."

A second U.S. official showed up and was able to get permissions for a compromise, which was no public photo-op, but an official Canadian photographer could enter the meeting to take a shot."

It makes you wonder when the U.S. Secretary of Energy is embarrassed to have a public photograph taken with the Canadian Minister of the Environment.

Note that the Canadian position on emissions reductions targets, unless further weakened as is rumored may be in the works, is basically identical to the U.S. position: 3% below 1990 levels.

Canada has taken a surprising amount of criticism over that target -- perhaps not more than the U.S., but considering the relative size of the two country's economies a disporportionate amount -- and so it makes sense for Prentice to want to be seen alongside Chu. Kelly and Prentice may have not really had much chance of successfully changing the story, but the image of the two together would help dampen the notion that Canada is something of an extremist, an outlier, beyond the pale of reasonable negotiating parameters.

Chu, however, has comparatively less to gain from associating himself with Prentice, and Canada in general. And after Monday's devastating prank, every reason not to be seen doing so. It almost makes you feel sorry for Kelly and the rest of Prentice's staff. They're just doing they're jobs. But, as some characters in one of my son's favorites books about learning to share like to say "Too bad."