Obama Visit to Change Harper's Tune?

US President Obama met with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper late last week in Ottawa. Following their brief meeting the two North American leaders outlined three main priorities for their bilateral relationship — working together to restore economic growth, a commitment to stabilize Afghanistan, and yes, a new initiative on environmental protection.

Indeed, in the lead up to yesterday's face-to-face Harper's statements about the environment were almost urgent. The Globe and Mail reported that,


"Mr. Harper said Mr. Obama's presidency is ushering in a new era of North American co-operation against climate change after George W. Bush's inaction held back Canada's ability to tackle greenhouse-gas emissions."

Perhaps like yourself, the statement above did not quite line up with my memories of Harper's foot dragging and general denial of climate change. But I am open minded, and to that end I took a quick survey of past Conscious Earth posts related to Harper and the environment. Maybe I remembered his track record wrong....


Nope, guess not.

Apologies for the lack of of '08 postings. I felt the need to spend some time out of country following the Conservative's overwhelming "progress". Still, there was some promise to the initial dialogue between Obama and Harper including plans for greater collaboration on carbon sequestration and employing smart grid technology to the electricity infrastructure. However, the ultimate success of these initial talks will depend on how rapidly and aggressively the new president implements a cap and trade system on carbon, and how those regulations would apply to imported energy from Canada's tar patch.

Time will tell. In the mean time, here's a photo compilation from the Conscious Earth posts listed above.

· Canada, global warming, harper, obama, politics, US

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