Ad campaign puts pressure on Canada
during UN climate conference in Montreal

MONTREAL – Huge billboards that spoof Canada’s iconic landscapes greeted more than 10,000 delegates to the United Nations climate change conference as they arrived in Montreal.

“When you think of Canada, you think of the spectacular natural landscapes that tie our country together,” said Morag Carter, director of the Suzuki Foundation’s climate change program. “But climate change threatens those landscapes. Our ad campaign goes to the very core of our Canadian identity by satirizing that which is most sacred to us. The ads reinforce a serious message but they do so in a light-hearted way.”

Posted right outside the conference centre where delegates met, as well as inside the city’s most popular restaurants, the David Suzuki Foundation’s billboards are designed to look like massive postcards. For example, one billboard features a photograph of a young girl in a bathing suit standing on a dry lakebed with the words “The Great Lakes!” written across the bottom.

The conference, which was held in Montreal from Nov. 28 to Dec. 9, was the biggest climate change gathering the world has seen since the Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997. More than 10,000 delegates from more than 189 countries attended.

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