The most recent news is that there is talk that Canada should be suspended from the Commonwealth because, according to a coalition of scientists, politicians and campaigners,  Canada “has not cut greenhouse gas emissions to comply with the Kyoto Project”.

There is a Commonwealth summit this weekend in Trinidad and Tobago – which PM Harper’s is attending, along with other prominent world leaders.

Apparently, Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions are directly contributing to droughts, floods and sea levels rising in other Commonwealth countries, like Bangladesh, the Maldives and Mozambique to name a few. Several prominent people have commented:

Clare Short, formal international development secretary: ” Countries that fail to help [tackle global warming] should be suspended from membership, as are those that breach human rights”

Saleemul Huq, lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: “If the Commonwealth is serious about holding its members to account, then threatening the lives of millions of people in developing countries should lead to the suspension of Canada’s membership immediately”

Apparently, a big factor for these people is that Canada is the next country to chair the G8 summit in June 2010. British Prime Minster Gordon Brown proposed a fantastic idea: Canada should fun $17.5 billion as part of the Copenhagen agreement to help poorer countries.. He has also allegedly offered $10 billion from Britain to kick start the “Copenhagen launch fund”.. (I’ve found different amounts on different sites – they seem to range from $800 million to $10 billion USD) Um, isn’t Britain broke?! I wonder where he pulled that from.. Gordon mate, good thing BS is organic eh…

As far as I’m concerned, this treaty mustn’t be signed. PM Harper needs to call their bluff. I find it absolutely amazing that the Climate Research Centre hack has not been reported in mainstream Canadian news sources. Also, according to my online digging, the US is in the same boat. There is hardly any mention of it. I wonder why….

Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail, and the world won’t get sucked into a “global government” scenario. I was watching some of the video clips from today’s Commonwealth summit, and many leaders feel that the main goal of the Copenhagen conference is that a deal is reached and that money is on the table. Even the UN chief is quoted to urge world leaders to “seal a deal”.

I’ll continue following the action as it happens…. Watch this space…