By Gurmukh Singh, IANS
Toronto : Even as over 10,000 delegates from 187 countries are attending the UN Conference on Climate Change in Bali, Indonesia, to work out an agreement to succeed the Kyoto accord after it ends in 2012, it has come out that Canada might try to “sabotage” the talks.
Placed at 53 in a recent survey of 56 industrialized nations, which contribute 90 percent of greenhouse emissions, Canada is the fourth worst performer in 2007.
Climate Action Network, a global environment advocacy group, has obtained a Canadian government document revealing how it would derail the negotiations by insisting on stringent conditions on developing countries such as China and India.
The Network says Canada’s new stand flies in the face of what the Kyoto Protocol outlines: more responsibility on industrialized nations than developing nations.
Dale Marshall of the David Suzuki Foundation said: “To ask countries with hundreds of millions of people in poverty to accept binding targets is not a position that is going to move along things in Bali. It is going to derail everything.” David Suzuki, a Japanese-Canadian activist, is the face of Canada’s green movement and his foundation is part of Climate Action Network.
The secret government document says Canada will also insist on “special considerations” for “national circumstances” in some countries so that their economic growth is not hampered.
This “special circumstance” in Canada’s case is its booming oil sands industry in the province of Alberta, which is sitting on the world’s second largest reserve.
Canadian Environment Minister John Baird also hinted at this “national circumstance” in a letter to a local newspaper in which he said Canada would accept greenhouse goals only if emerging nations such as India and China were also brought under stringent standards.
The minister’s letter said: “Eliminating emissions in one country but allowing them to skyrocket in another does nothing to reduce the global burden of harmful substances that contribute to climate change and pollute the air we breathe.
“Canada faces unique national circumstances. Geographically, we are the second largest country in the world. Our towns and cities are spread out across thousands of kilometres.
“Our climate is cold. We know that it takes energy for Canadians to carry out their daily tasks, to go to work, to take their kids to hockey or to music lessons and to keep the economy moving.”
Baird added: “We are willing to accept absolute binding targets on emissions, but we need all major emitters on board. Studies show that even if Canada were to eliminate all of its greenhouse gas emissions, China’s would replace every last ounce of them within 18 months.”