Canada Doesn't See
Breakthrough at Post-Kyoto Meet
September 13, 2005 — By David Ljunggren, Reuters
OTTAWA — A major Montreal meeting
charged with starting to draft a successor to the Kyoto climate change
accord is unlikely to produce a breakthrough, a senior Canadian official
said Monday.
The conference, which runs from Nov. 28 to Dec. 9, will try to find
common ground between those countries that signed on to Kyoto and those
that did not, including the United States, China, India and Australia.
"We don't expect outcomes on this at Montreal because this is the first
discussion of the post-Kyoto regime," the official told a briefing.
"But what we want to do is build bridges between developing countries
and industrial countries -- including the industrial countries that are
not members of Kyoto -- as to the kind of regime which might exist in
the future."
Kyoto, designed to curb emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global
warming, formally expires in 2012 and the task of forging a new treaty
will be immense. Many of the 152 signatories have had trouble meeting
their targets.
The United States, the world's biggest polluter, walked away from Kyoto
in 2001, saying it would harm economic growth. It also complained the
accord does not cover developing countries such as China and India.
"We want this to be something which is remembered as the start of
serious negotiations with the countries that are not part of Kyoto,"
said the Canadian official.
"I don't think we're going to have another Kyoto in which not all
industrial countries and no developing countries establish targets for
themselves ... If you were to negotiate Kyoto today you would want China
in it."
Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin will be at the United Nations this
week, the official said, where he will raise the subject of the Montreal
conference with leaders such as Prime Minister John Howard of Australia,
who also walked away from Kyoto.
The official said Martin's message to Howard would be: "It's very
important that you take these discussions seriously ... it's up to you
to come up with something in Montreal as to how to bridge the gap".
Australia agreed in July to work with the United States, China, India,
Japan and South Korea to curb global warming but the six countries did
not set targets for emissions cuts.
Another challenge at Montreal will be dealing with developing countries,
which are likely to demand help to meet emissions targets, the official
said.
"The Indian (approach) ... is 'You give us the technology with no
royalties to pay and we'll start doing something'... It'll be a very
complicated process," he said.
Source: Reuters |