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Canada's government on Monday decried a hoax announcement of its new plans for deep carbon emissions cuts that underscored its rift with environmentalists at international climate talks in Copenhagen.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper's spokesman, Dimitri Soudas, accused famed environmentalist Steven Guilbeault of betraying Canada for criticizing its climate record in a series of spoof press releases.
The first of the phony announcements touted Canada's adoption of a bold new binding target to reduce its CO2 emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.
In fact, Canada's target is closer three percent.
Guilbeault, co-founder of environmental lobby Equiterre, reportedly confronted Soudas at the UN summit in Copenhagen, denying any links to the deception and demanded an apology from the prime minister's office.
None would be forthcoming, officials said.
Such trickery is "incredibly childish," Soudas told AFP. "This is an important summit ... and there's no place here for this sort of rhetoric."
"What's at stake is battling climate change," he said by telephone from Copenhagen.
Equiterre said in a statement Soudas "should stop throwing baseless accusations. A better way to use his time would probably be to advise the Canadian government to change its deeply flawed position on climate."
The original fictitious release obtained by AFP was followed by two more fakes.
One claimed that the Ugandan delegation at the UN climate talks praised Canada's tough new targets and its offer to pay African nations 13 billion dollars in climate damage "reparations."
Another claimed to be sent by Environment Canada, denouncing the first two releases for generating "hurtful rumors" and misleading conference delegates on Canada's climate change position.
It provided a link to a bogus Wall Street Journal online story about Canada's purported tough new climate policy.
Environment Canada confirmed that all three emails sent to major news outlets were forgeries.
A spokeswoman for the government agency said Ottawa "remains committed to reducing Canada's total greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent from 2006 levels by 2020, and 60-70 percent by 2050."
