[DIV id=headline] [H2]Ottawa now wants Kyoto deal scrapped[/H2]
[DIV id=author] [P class=byline]BILL CURRY
[P class=source]From Saturday's Globe and Mail
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[DIV id=article style="FONT-SIZE: 100%"] [!-- dateline --]OTTAWA [!-- /dateline --]— Canada will not support attempts by other countries to set deeper emission-reduction targets for the Kyoto Protocol's second phase, according to private instructions to Canadian negotiators in Bonn, Germany.
The instructions obtained by The Globe and Mail also show that Canada wants the climate-change accord phased out in favour of a separate, voluntary deal.
Ottawa's public submission to United Nations talks in Bonn on the Kyoto Protocol last week indicated Canada wants more lenient targets for itself. The private instructions from the Foreign Affairs Department to the Canadian delegation show Canada will also oppose the widely held view that targets in the second phase, which begins after 2012, should be tougher than those in the first phase.
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"Canada will not support agreement on language in the work program that commits developed countries to more stringent targets in the future," states a line contained in 22 pages of instructions.
The paper also shows that Canada is threatening to pull out of the UN climate-change process unless it includes the United States and all other major polluters.
The international community is in the middle of two weeks of talks in Germany on what Kyoto will look like in its second phase. Two sets of talks are taking place simultaneously. The first is based on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, a 1994 international treaty supported by 189 countries that involves voluntary commitments to address climate change.
The second talks are about the Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 addition that significantly strengthens the convention with legally binding targets for reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. While 163 countries are in the protocol, only Canada and 34 other countries took on targets for the first phase.
The United States continues to take part in the climate-change convention but is not part of Kyoto.
The instructions to Canadian negotiators reveal Ottawa is pushing for the Kyoto Protocol to disappear.
"Canada does not support a continuation of the status quo beyond 2012, and has no preconceived view on how a new commitment period might be structured."
The paper says, however, a new agreement "must include the USA and all major developing country emitters and allow for different types of commitments based on national circumstances. Canada would ideally like to see the two tracks related to the future converge into a single inclusive and effective approach and believes the Convention Dialogue has more potential for this."
The instructions show that rather than looking to the post-2012 phase, Canada's position is that the working group must spend "at least two years" focused on past actions by the involved countries to determine what is working and what is not, and that it will not support any measures beyond that.
Federal Minister of the Environment Rona Ambrose said Canada is looking cautiously at what further Kyoto commitments would mean.
"Canada's position is that we support the two-year assessment period that is going to commence after the meetings in Bonn right now, and a number of countries are supporting that assessment period as well, and then we will, after that, decide whether or not we can make further [Kyoto] commitments," she said when asked whether Canada opposes other countries setting tougher targets.
"We have an excellent international negotiating team in Bonn right now, and they are acting in the best interests of Canada, and I have full confidence that they will do what's needed."
Ms. Ambrose was asked whether she prefers the convention route or the Kyoto route.
"Both tracks are very important," she replied.
"What a lot of members from the United Nations that are involved in this would like to see is all countries come to the table, which is why the open dialogue has been developed. We all want to see the open dialogue succeed because there's a number of countries that aren't in the Kyoto Protocol. This is an opportunity to bring them onboard. Canada will be actively involved in both tracks as we move forward."
Environmentalist Steven Guilbeault of Greenpeace Canada, who is in Bonn and has attended every major climate-change meeting since 1992's summit in Rio de Janeiro, says the instructions show Canada is attempting to "sabotage" the Kyoto talks. He predicted their release will trigger a "small nuclear bomb" of controversy today in Bonn.
"This is a serious diplomatic incident," he said.
Ms. Ambrose also confirmed that she has asked her department to consider what it would mean for Canada to become the seventh country in the Asia-Pacific partnership on climate change, but she insisted the partnership is not an alternative to the Kyoto Protocol.
NDP Leader Jack Layton also obtained the instructions last night and described Canada's position as "extremely disturbing."
Mr. Layton said the position is an attempt to destroy Kyoto.
"It's sort of like pulling the pin off a grenade and rolling it into the negotiations," he said. "Canada has completely betrayed the global partnership."
[img height=128 alt="A pedestrian walks along Broadview Ave. with a hazy city skyline in the background in Toronto, Ont. June 8, 2005." src="vny!://images.theglobeandmail.com/archives/RTGAM/images/20060519/wxkyoto20/broadview.jpg" width=209]
A pedestrian walks along Broadview Ave. with a hazy city skyline in the background in Toronto, Ont. June 8, 2005. [CITE class=source](Kevin Van Paassen/The Globe and Mail)[/CITE]
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