Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be walking into a maelstrom of Canada-bashing when he lands at the Copenhagen summit tomorrow, but he is unlikely to be fazed by it.
From the awarding of "fossil of the day" trophies, to calls from provincial premiers for more ambitious national emissions-reduction targets, to reports that the government is cutting a special deal for the oil sands, the activity away from the negotiating table has been deeply embarrassing to the Harper government.
But Mr. Harper is renowned for his disdain for the national media, which has played up the attacks, and he appears determined to focus on the job at hand: negotiating a climate deal that he believes is in Canada's interest.
That means standing cheek by jowl with Barack Obama by insisting that Canada will match the actions of the U.S. President in the effort to reduce global carbon emissions.
\And it means refusing to be stampeded by the vocal crush of environmentalists, commentators, opposition politicians, and provincial premiers and ministers to take on greater commitments than he feels the country can afford.
"It's the people at the negotiating table that matter," one senior government official said last night. "And they see Canada playing a constructive role."
There are no public events planned for Mr. Harper's visit to Copenhagen. Instead he will focus on meeting with other world leaders and caucusing with the Canadian delegation to work on the government's position during what is expected to be a tense conclusion to the two-week summit.
He is, above all, determined to avoid the mistake of the former Liberal government, which bowed to political pressure to make commitments under the Kyoto Protocol that it then failed to meet. (Environmentalists argue the Conservatives are drawing the wrong lesson from Kyoto: that the fault lay not in the ambitious commitments but in the failure to follow through with requisite action.)
In preparation for the summit, Mr. Harper has been in regular contact with Environment Minister Jim Prentice, who leads the official delegation at Copenhagen. That delegation includes some of Mr. Harper's most trusted confidants on the climate-change issue, including Bruce Carson, a former senior aide who now leads the University of Calgary's School of Energy and Environment; Jacques Lamarre, former chief executive at Montreal-based SNC-Lavalin; and Charlie Fischer, chief executive at Calgary-based oil company Nexen Inc.
The Prime Minister will, however, be without his principal spokesman, Dimitri Soudas, who leaves Copenhagen just as Mr. Harper arrives. Mr. Soudas was filmed this week berating a Canadian environmentalist over a hoax news release that embarrassed the government, despite the man's insistence he had nothing to do with the stunt. He is leaving Copenhagen for a long-planned vacation with his family.
But that won't leave the government short of communications advice. Indeed, Environment Canada has established a war room to counter bad press, with a bolstered staff that includes former Financial Post journalist Deirdre McMurdy.
Critics in Copenhagen say the dismay over Canada's stand extends well beyond environmentalists, and includes United Nations officials and delegates from other countries who hope to fashion an agreement that will commit developed countries to substantial reductions in emissions from 1990 levels - something Canada refuses to do.
"Harper will find the mood unpleasant overall, but some people will be happy to greet him," said Green Party Leader Elizabeth May. "Those who really want a meaningful agreement will be furious with Canada."
"The countries happy to see Harper fall into two camps - countries that hide behind Canada, saying they want to reduce GHGs [greenhouse gases]but are able to blame Canada for the fact the targets are so pathetic overall. And the other really happy nation - our like-minded ally, Saudi Arabia."
At the beginning of the summit, the Saudis, who have resisted calls for substantial reductions in the energy-producing kingdom's emissions, said they remain skeptical about human-caused climate change.