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November 15, 2009
Harper says all countries need to be in climate deal
SINGAPORE – Leaders of major and emerging economies formally punted an international agreement on curbing greenhouse gas emissions down the road Sunday.
The 21-country Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation group, which comprises some 60 per cent of global emissions, held an ad hoc breakfast meeting to discuss next month's critical United Nations climate negotiations.
The consensus was that no deal on a post-2012 emissions regime will be found in Denmark.
“There was an assessment by the leaders that it is unrealistic to expect a full internationally, legally binding agreement could be negotiated between now and Copenhagen, which starts in 22 days,” said Michael Froman, the national security adviser to U.S. President Barack Obama.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper had cautioned on Saturday that APEC leaders – including the U.S., China, Japan, Australia and Indonesia – had “significant differences” over climate change policy.
Those differences were born out Sunday morning when Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd convened an ad hoc breakfast meeting to discuss the road ahead.
Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen arrived in Singapore to address the breakfast group and afterwards appeared to be attempting to salvage something of the U.N. conference he will chair in December.
Rasmussen proposed the APEC leaders commit to finding a “politically binding” agreement in Copenhagen, while leaving the legally binding details for later.
Harper has spoken here of the critical importance of levelling the playing field in any future international agreement.
But Harper’s message of carbon reduction parity was undermined by a leading climate-change expert at the summit, who said Canada’s poor record on reducing emissions has cost it credibility.
A leaked draft of the final communique suggested the only consensus settled upon by APEC leaders was the lowest common denominator.
Rather than commit to 50 per cent reductions from 1990 levels by 2050, as proposed in an earlier draft, published reports suggested the leaders could only agree emissions should “be substantially reduced by 2050” and that they need to peak “over the next few years.”
“This controversy is not going to go away,” said the moderator of an APEC-sponsored forum on climate change and the economy Saturday.
Harper said not only environmental benefits, but also economic imperatives, require full global participation in any post-Kyoto climate change deal.
“If everyone is not included, you set up the possible risk that certain countries will gain economic advantage from being included or not included,” Harper said at a media availability Saturday.
“If some contribute, or some contribute disproportionately, then the economic risks for others become enormous.”
It’s an argument that only highlights Canada’s own track record in relation to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
The Liberal government of the day committed to deep emission reductions, but only slowly developed modest reduction policies as emissions continued to rise. When the Conservatives came to power in 2006, Canada was woefully behind its international commitment and fell even further when the Tories essentially scrapped the Liberal program in favour of rebuilding climate-change policy from scratch. That policy and its regulations remain a work in progress almost four years later.
While the Tories lay the blame at the feet of the Liberals, it is a moot point internationally, according to Prof. Tim Flannery of the Copenhagen Climate Council, a business-oriented scientific group.
“The people of Canada through their government made the commitment, and it needs to be honoured somehow or other, or it needs to be dealt with,” the Australian climate-change expert told The Canadian Press.
The UN negotiations in Copenhagen put Canada in “a really difficult position,” he said.
“Canada is by far the biggest defaulter on its Kyoto obligations on a tonnage basis. And as a result of that there is a lack of trust.”
Canada’s failure is “not all the Harper government's fault,” added Flannery.
“It’s a long (Canadian) history of mismanaging this issue. But Canada’s credibility is at stake here. And at the national level, just as much as at the individual level, reputation is everything.”
The Harper government has said it is awaiting a detailed U.S. stance on climate change, because the intertwining of the two economies means Canada cannot get out of step with American efforts.
© 2009 The Canadian Press
