Canada wants new climate deal by 2015: Environment minister

Environment Minister Peter Kent, seen here earlier this week at Durban’s climate change summit, says Canada is pushing for a new binding international climate change regime to come into effect within four years. (PHOTO BY FRANK TESTER)

MIKE DE SOUZA
Postmedia News

DURBAN, South Africa — Canada is pushing for a new binding international climate change regime to come into effect within four years to avoid dangerous interference with the atmosphere, Environment Minister Peter Kent said Thursday.

Speaking to reporters after a public appearance at a side event at the United Nations climate change summit, Kent acknowledged there were a lot of issues left to resolve before the end of the conference on Friday.

But he said he hoped nations would walk away with a “mandate” to negotiate the new deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol on climate change to avoid average global temperatures from rising more than two degrees above pre-industrial levels. That measure is considered by countries to be a “tipping point” that would cause irreversible damage to economies and ecosystems.

“Time is really running short, in terms of [reaching[ the two degrees [Celsius of warming], and Canada is already past that in the Arctic,” Kent said. “We really do need to find a way to get meaningful, significant reductions from the major developing economies. The major economies that were never [bound with targets] to Kyoto.”

He also recognized the new deal must not punish poorer countries, signalling a shift from remarks he made less than a week earlier. At that time he suggested the developed countries were being asked to take on an unfair burden in stabilizing heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

“What we’re seeing now is the developed countries emissions are coming down, the developing countries emissions between now and 2030 will soar,” said Kent, who met with Green Party leader Elizabeth May in the morning.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed by Canada in 1992, was founded on a principle that developed countries must do more to stop dangerous climate change since they are responsible for most of the accumulated pollution in the atmosphere that is causing the problem. It was updated in 1997 with the Kyoto Protocol in order to add binding targets on developed countries as a first step in reducing emissions.

Kent said Canada wanted to see a binding agreement that would recognize provisions of deals reached at last year’s summit in Cancun, regarding transparency, accountability, and monitoring of action, as well as launching a global green climate fund to help developing countries achieve reductions and adapt to emerging impacts of global warming.

“We think it would be helpful to move ahead with a new agreement sooner rather than later, because in addressing the challenges to the climate of the globe that we all share, whether or not there’s a binding agreement or not we feel that it’s the moral obligation of all emitters to reduce,” Kent said.

“We would see 2015 as a reasonable deadline for a binding agreement taking effect [or] coming into effect.”

Kent also said China was a global leader that could play an important role in the process, and he hoped to hear more about their policies to tackle climate change.

Canada has already said it won’t accept a new round of targets to extend the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012, but he said it could still engage other countries by honouring its commitments made in recent years to offer $1.2 billion in “fast-start” climate financing for developing countries through loans and grants.

“We think there should be no pause in our efforts to reach a successor agreement to Kyoto,” said Kent. “We’re working to convince countries that we all have an obligation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions absolutely.”

The European Union has indicated it’s prepared to take on a new round of targets under Kyoto if other nations agree to negotiate a new deal and pledge to join that agreement by around 2015 for implementation in 2020. European leaders have also urged other countries to recommit to Kyoto during the transition period, since it is the only international tool in the world that requires countries to reduce their greenhouse gas pollution.

The Canadian government did not advise media that Kent would appear at the morning event, but news of his emergence spread quickly spread by word of mouth.

Kent declined to speak to reporters on Wednesday after a group of six Canadian protesters disrupted a speech in which he urged conference delegates to turn the page on the Kyoto agreement.

But he said he was tied up in a series of meetings with allies from the so-called “Umbrella” group of countries that includes the U.S. and Australia, as well as its discussions with the European Union.