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“Canada is back, my good friends,” Justin Trudeau said at the end of his speech to the Paris climate summit, and then he did that thing he does, where he touches his heart with his hand.

For fans of self-serving humbug, this was the trifecta: the glib sloganeering, the false humility the gaudy theatricality, and all in the service of — what? Beyond the suggestion, familiar from years past, that “Canada” equals “Liberal,” and the shower of applause in reply from his “good friends” at the conference, it’s hard to say.

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Certainly in substantive terms it matters not a whit whether “Canada is back,” even supposing that meant anything and even supposing we were. As far as the future temperature of the Earth is concerned, Canada is irrelevant, being responsible for just 1.6 per cent of world emissions of carbon and other greenhouse gases. Any role we might play in Paris is strictly for show.

Which doesn’t mean we shouldn’t play it: as an example to others; as our contribution, however small, to the global effort to reduce these emissions. But the emissions targets set under the former Liberal government were unattainable, even had they tried. And the targets set by the former Conservative government were inadequate, even had they tried.