What do you do to burnish your eco-credentials if you are a prime minister with a reputation for environmentalism, but who has recently authorised the expansion of a domestic pipeline carrying some of the dirtiest oil in the world? What sort of policy could make people forget that further oil sands development all but guarantees that your country will exceed its Paris Agreement climate commitments?
If you’re Canada’s Justin Trudeau, you could distract attention from such awkward contradictions by announcing, as he did in June, a ban on single-use plastics and pushing the rest of the G7 to sign up to a voluntary anti-plastics charter. Theresa May was similarly seduced by the distractive capabilities of what she called “one of the greatest environmental scourges of our times”, proposing a ban on straws, drink-stirrers and cotton buds. She also warned supermarkets to introduce aisles free of plastic packaging.
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