Canada backs breakaway six-nation climate group

By David Ljunggren

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada’s new Conservative government,
which is openly skeptical about the Kyoto climate change
protocol, said on Tuesday it backs a breakaway group of six
nations that favor a voluntary approach to cutting emissions of
greenhouse gases.

The Conservatives — whose power base is in the energy-rich
western province of Alberta — say Canada cannot meet its Kyoto
targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Environment Minister Rona Ambrose said she favors the
Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate,
which groups the United States, Australia, Japan, China, India
and South Korea. The pact looks at how to develop technologies
to reduce emissions rather than having specific reduction
targets.

“We’ve been looking at the Asia-Pacific Partnership for a
number of months now because the key principles around (it) are
very much in line with where our government wants to go,”
Ambrose told reporters.

“It’s a very interesting group and I think they’re doing
things that we’re very interested in participating in further
down the road,” she said after meeting two senior U.S.
government officials who deal with the environment.

Under Kyoto, Canada is committed to cutting its emissions
by 6 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. The latest data show
emissions are running 24.4 percent above 1990 levels and these
will rise as oil-rich tar sands are developed in Alberta.

The Conservatives — who ousted the Liberals after 12 years
in office in the January 23 election — say they want a
made-in-Canada plan to tackling climate change. Earlier this
month Ottawa scrapped 15 research programs related to the Kyoto
protocol.

Environmentalists said the comments by Ambrose about the
partnership — which is being heavily promoted by Washington —
show the Canadian government is not serious about tackling
climate change.

“There isn’t anything that will happen because of the
partnership. It relies entirely on voluntary action and the
hope that industry will come forward,” said John Bennett of the
Sierra Club.

“Canada is being enthusiastic about a meaningless public
relations stunt by the U.S. government when it should be
talking about the importance of working … on a program that
has real targets,” he told Reuters.

Ambrose said the six-nation grouping is important because
it engages major polluters China and India, which are not bound
by Kyoto targets.

“Right now under the protocol there is no commitment for a
number of countries to do that. So that’s the crux of the issue
for Canada,” she said.

The previous Liberal government planned to meet part of its
Kyoto target by buying emissions credits abroad, a course of
action that Ambrose ruled out.

“(The government’s climate change plan) will promote
investment in Canadian communities and not investment overseas
by purchasing international credits where there is very little
accountability,” she said.

Last week, a group of 90 top environmental experts wrote an
open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper saying that unless
he moved quickly to tackle global warming, the country’s
economy and quality of life would increasingly suffer.