The biggest story of 2011 for me was the national and international attention given to the environmental dangers of Canada's tar sands, and the failure of the Harper government to meet our obligations to combat climate change. Until this year, most criticism of Canada's climate policy was restricted to Canadian and some international environmentalists. But three events of 2011 caused Canada's energy and climate policies to come under intense scrutiny here in Canada and around the world.

Conventional wisdom has it that 2011 was a turning point for democracy and progress, a year of hope and inspiration. The year in which the protester came out from behind the sign and became the person of the year who was making change.

I find myself a contrarian to this uplifting view. I have little hope arising from the progress that did not materialize. It was a year of progress unfulfilled, and frankly we are left with a world less friendly and more austere than a year ago.

Today the National Energy Board released its review of the safety and environmental requirements for offshore drilling in Canada's Arctic. You can read the report here.

The report is part of the NEB's Arctic Offshore Drilling Review that was prompted after the public outcry to the BP offshore disaster in the Gulf.

The United Nations climate change talks in Durban, South Africa, ended 2011 with a whimper. After a year in which climate disasters rolled across the globe, major polluting nations like Canada chose to ignore them, seeking instead to disrupt the Durban negotiations, then blew the world a raspberry, by officially pulling out of the Kyoto Accord.

I just returned from a media scrum in the foyer outside of our House of Commons (not the House of corporations) where Minister Kent announced Canada will legally leave the Kyoto Protocol.

Kent coached the announcement with plenty of key words about our ongoing commitment to the Durban platform, (the so-called real way forward) a fair dose of fear-mongering (as Megan Leslie referred to it) and that we are committed to tackling climate change. But they were just that, words, words that hopefully mainstream media won't buy hook, line and sinker. While this announcement may not come as a surprise, the reality is it is a big deal.

In a media statement released during Kent's speech, the Council of Canadians responded to today's announcement:

Arguably, the single worst thing the Harper government has done during its feckless term in office is to walk away from Canada's global responsibility to address climate change.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Liberal predecessors weren't fundamentally better. The Liberals signed the Kyoto treaty with no intention of implementing it.

But Mr. Harper's team is worse, because not only are we continuing to fail to meet our responsibilities, and not only has the government of Canada become a huckster for some of the most carbon-intensive products on sale in the global marketplace, but Mr. Harper and his ministers want us to think this is a principled thing to do -- something to celebrate.