Canada will meet Kyoto emissions targets, PM says

MONTREAL (Reuters) – Canada will meet 2012 goals for
cutting greenhouse gas emissions under the U.N.’s Kyoto
Protocol even though the country is far above target, Prime
Minister Paul Martin said at a U.N. conference on Wednesday.

U.N. data showed that Canada’s emissions of greenhouse
gases are running 24.4 percent above 1990 levels even though
the U.N.’s Kyoto Protocol binds Canada to cutting its emissions
by six percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.

“We’re going to hit our Kyoto targets,” he told a news
conference after a speech to more than 90 environment ministers
meeting in Montreal to discuss new ways to fight climate
change.

He said Canada was one of few oil and gas producing
countries in the Kyoto Protocol. Emissions from burning fossil
fuels are widely blamed for blanketing the planet and driving
up temperatures, threatening wrenching disruptions to the
climate.

But he said that Ottawa was making progress on cleaning up
emissions and was developing new technologies including ways to
bury carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas.

“Our record on combating climate change was far from
perfect in the 1990s,” said Martin, who faces an election in
January after losing a vote of confidence last week, 17 months
into his term.

“But now we are investing billions in progressive,
effective initiatives as we work toward our Kyoto commitments,”
he said.

Some Canadian reporters faulted Martin for using a plane
with a high use of fuel on his campaign trips.

“I’m not in a position to comment on the fuel use of a
plane,” he said, and questioned whether reporters would prefer
to travel vast distances across Canada by bus.