White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan speaks during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, Friday, Sept. 15, 2023. The White House is pushing back against reports that Canada-U.S. relations are straining under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s seismic murder allegation against the government of India. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP/Susan Walsh

By James McCarten in Washington

The White House is pushing back against reports that Canada-U.S. relations are straining under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s seismic allegation that the government of India was involved in the killing of a Canadian citizen.

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says the U.S. shares Canada’s “deep concerns” and denies any suggestion of a wedge between the two countries.

Recent U.S. efforts to woo India as an economic and geopolitical ally have fuelled speculation that the White House was hedging its bets with its neighbour and vital trading partner.

Hardeep Singh Nijjar, prominent supporter of the Khalistan separatism movement that advocates for a Sikh homeland in India’s Punjab province, was killed in June outside the gurdwara he led in  Surrey, B.C.

The Indian government designated him as a terrorist in 2020, accusing him of belonging to a banned militant group.

A Canadian official told The Associated Press that the allegation of India’s involvement is based on surveillance of Indian diplomats in Canada, including intelligence provided by a major ally.

The official said the communications involved Indian officials and Indian diplomats in Canada and that some of the intelligence was provided by a member of the “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing alliance — Canada, the U.S., Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

The official did not say which ally provided the intelligence or give any details of the communications or how they were obtained. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The Prime Minister’s Office refused Friday to either confirm or deny the details, which were first reported by CBC News.

“We are consulting with (Canada) closely, we support the efforts that they are undertaking in this investigation, and we have also been in touch with the Indian government as well,” Sullivan told the White House press briefing Thursday.

“I firmly reject the idea that there is a wedge between the U.S. and Canada. We have deep concerns about the allegations, and we would like to see this investigation carried forward and the perpetrators held to account.”

On Friday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre refused to elaborate on Sullivan’s comments or release any additional details beyond saying the U.S. is in close contact with officials in both countries.

“He was not going to comment about private diplomatic conversations; I’m not going to do that either,” Jean-Pierre said. “But yes, there has been conversations with our partners in the Indian government.”

As he wrapped up two days at the UN General Assembly on Thursday, Trudeau urged India to co-operate with its investigation and work with Canada to ensure accountability and justice.

But he steadfastly refused to elaborate on the evidence that prompted him to tell the House of Commons of “credible allegations” of Indian involvement, except to say it “was not done lightly.”

On Friday, he offered little new information beyond rejecting the claims of Indian officials that Canada has not shared the details of its charges.

“We did that many weeks ago,” Trudeau said during a news conference alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who wrapped up a North American whirlwind visit with a speech in Parliament.

“We are there to work constructively with India and we hope that they engage with us so that we can get to the bottom of this very serious matter.”

Canada and India each expelled one of the other’s diplomatic emissaries in the ensuing fallout.

Foreign ministers from the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, a coalition including India, the U.S., Australia and Japan known informally as the “Quad,” met Friday on the margins of the UN assembly in New York City.

“We are committed to countering terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, including preventing the international and cross-border movement of terrorists, and countering terror finance networks and safe havens,” the group said in a joint statement.

“We stressed the need for a comprehensive and balanced approach to effectively curb terrorist activities through whole of nation and whole of international community efforts.”

The Quad, originally formed in 2007, was resurrected in 2017 in hopes of building an economic and geopolitical counterweight to China’s growing influence around the world and in the Indo-Pacific region in particular.

Canada was excluded from that alliance, as well as from AUKUS, a trilateral security pact between the U.K., the U.S. and Australia that took shape in 2021 as an undersea military triad separate from the Five Eyes group.

Washington also included India as a founding member of its Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, a nascent trading bloc into which Canada was not invited until Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly expressed interest in joining in 2022.

India, which has halted visa services in Canada, called the allegations absurd and an attempt to shift attention from the presence of Nijjar and other wanted suspects on Canadian soil. Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi called them “politically driven.”

“No specific information has been shared by Canada on this case. We are willing to look at any specific information, we have conveyed this to the Canadians,” Bagchi said.

He also accused Canada of being a safe haven for extremists.

“Very specific evidence about criminal activities by individuals based on Canadian soil has been shared with the Canadian authorities on a regular basis, but not been acted upon.”

Nijjar was working to organize an unofficial referendum among the Sikh diaspora on independence from India at the time of his killing. He had denied India’s accusation that he was a terrorist.

The second stage of B.C. voting on whether a Sikh homeland should be established in India’s Punjab province is scheduled to be held on Oct. 29.

“There is not some special exemption you get for actions like this,” Sullivan said.

“Regardless of the country, we will stand up and defend our basic principles. And we will also consult closely with allies like Canada as they pursue their law enforcement and diplomatic process.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 22, 2023.

— With files from The Associated Press.

Adnan Amin, CEO and number two official at the upcoming Conference of Parties (COP28) in Dubai, answers questions during an interview, Monday, Sept. 18, 2023, at United Nations Headquarters. Amin said he knows what activists, critics and the head of the United Nations really want – a phase out of fossil fuels that cause climate change. He said it looks unlikely. (AP Photo/Joseph Frederick)

By Seth Borenstein in New York

NEW YORK (AP) — A top official helping to oversee upcoming international climate negotiations hopes to prove critics wrong — and surprise them with a “course correction” for an ever-warming world.

But don’t expect that big a turn.

Adnan Amin, the CEO and No. 2 official at the upcoming Conference of Parties (COP28) in Dubai in late November and December, said he also knows what activists, critics and the head of the United Nations really want — a phase-out of fossil fuels that cause climate change. He said it looks unlikely.

Yet Amin said that while an agreement ridding the world of fossil fuels doesn’t look likely, a “phase-down of fossil fuels is inevitable.”

In an interview with The Associated Press, Amin demonstrated how the leadership of the climate talks is trying to thread a moving diplomatic needle and praised steps in a decarbonizing direction, however small. Amin’s boss, the COP28 president, is an oil executive; Amin was the founding director of the U.N.’s renewable energy agency. The talks are being hosted by petrostate United Arab Emirates.

The Kenya-born Amin is quick to defend COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber, pointing out that al-Jaber also runs a renewable energy company and was key in the founding of the U.N.’s renewable energy agency in the UAE. He will surprise critics, Amin said.

In 10 years when critics and others look back at the talks, Amin wants to hear amazement.

“I hope they will be saying that ‘we didn’t think that an oil producing country could achieve an outcome on climate of this sort. We didn’t think that a process that we thought was blah blah ( the words activist Greta Thunberg used to describe climate negotiations ) could achieve an outcome of this sort’,” Amin said. “But that was a course correction that the world needed to get us to a place of comfort for all of us.”

AN ELABORATE ECOSYSTEM IS IN THE WAY

It all comes down to the role of coal, oil and natural gas, the nations that rely on them and the companies that profit from them.

Amin welcomes fossil-fuel interests to negotiations, while U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, activists and some scientists literally want them gone. They say a phase-out of fossil fuels is the only way to curb warming to a manageable level.

But given oppositions by some countries and the climate talks requirement to act by consensus – so one nation can stop everything – it’s unlikely that a phase-out will be approved, Amin said. He pointed to the desire by some African countries to use fossil fuels to develop. Rich nations already emitted heat-trapping gases to develop, he said, and it’s not fair to ask Africa to forego that without massive financial aid to help them leapfrog to clean energy.

Outside experts don’t buy that argument.

“We don’t need these historic polluters using Africa poverty to promote fossil fuels which will ultimately inhibit Africa’s development,” said longtime climate analyst Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa.

Africa, which produces less than 4% of the world’s carbon emissions, gets hard hit with extreme weather, such as the rainy storm that triggered Libya’s floods and intense droughts, and have fewer resources to cope with disasters.

“If we truly want to be able to tackle climate change, the first thing we need to do is phase out fossil fuels,” Adow said in an email. “We don’t want UAE to hide behind low expectations of itself because it is an oil country. If it couldn’t deliver a radical, decarbonizing COP28 summit it should not be volunteering to coordinate it.”

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ‘PHASE OUT’ AND ‘PHASE DOWN’

Climate scientists Niklas Hohne at the New Climate Institute and Bill Hare at Climate Analytics say there’s a significant difference between “phase out” and “phase down.” They say “phase down” is what the fossil-fuel industry wants, not what the world needs.

“The scale of investment in fossil fuel development by the UAE is the clearest indication of the direction of travel and it is not towards decarbonization but locking in massive fossil gas infrastructure,” Hare said.

While a phase-out is crucial, former U.S. State Department climate lawyer Nigel Purvis said Amin is probably right that ending to fossil fuel is likely an impossible ask. That’s because it seemed as if major nations like Russia, China and Saudi Arabia were blocking such a move at a recent meeting of rich economies, he said.

Amin said upcoming climate talks aim to be the most inclusive ever, but that also includes the at-times vilified fossil fuel industry.

“We believe that the oil and gas industry needs to be part of the climate equation,” Amin said. “We’re engaging with them to see if we can get them to commit to, you know, more rapid decarbonization of their operations.”

Amin said he understands the angst and anger of young people. It’s their future, he says, so they will have more of an official role in this year’s negotiations than in the past.

Amin said he will consider the upcoming talks a success if they accomplish four things: fix and increase climate financial aid from rich nations to poor; decarbonize energy systems more; increase funding for nations to adapt to a warming world, especially hunger and health problems; and include more groups in the negotiations.

Fixing climate change is painstakingly slow, he said, but agreements from 2015 and 1997 have produced progress.

“There is a lot of impatience given the scale of the crisis,” Amin said. “The multilateral system moves slowly, but it moves.”

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