Guest essay by Eric Worrall

Negotiations for a new North American Free Trade Agreement have reportedly stalled at least in part over whether climate change should be included in the text of the agreement.

U.S. Fights Mention of ‘Climate Change’ in New Nafta By Josh Wingrove , Eric Martin , and Andrew Mayeda 16 December 2017, 06:46 GMT+10 Updated on 16 December 2017, 07:24 GMT+10 The U.S. is fighting against any mention of “climate change” in a potential new environmental chapter of the North American Free Trade Agreement, according to two people familiar with talks. The latest Nafta talks were set to wrap Friday in Washington with no new agreement to finalize individual subjects or chapters. While mention of climate change in a trade agreement would be largely symbolic, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has pushed for the inclusion of such “progressive” elements to help boost public support for trade. In a list of Nafta negotiating objectives, the U.S. called for the countries to bring environmental provisions, along with labor, from side agreements into the core of the deal. Still, it’s privately pushing against the inclusion of the phrase “climate change” in that chapter, and against any mention of multilateral cooperation on the environment, the two people said, speaking on condition of anonymity as negotiations continue. …

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-15/u-s-is-said-to-fight-mention-of-climate-change-in-new-nafta

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s climate posturing rarely fails to entertain.

Hardcore greens like Bill McKibben despise Trudeau because he supports oil sand extraction – as Trudeau said in March, “No country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and just leave them there.”. Trudeau’s $215,000 holiday to the Bahamas including a 70 mile private helicopter flight from Nassau to Bell Island also attracted significant criticism from greens and Canadian MPs.

Then to prove his green sympathies, Trudeau backflips and tosses absurd climate demands into high profile events, like the current NAFTA renegotiation.

Given how many people Trudeau has upset, you really have to wonder who he thinks his target audience is, or whether he even has a target audience.

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