BAIRD MISSING AT KEY CLIMATE TALKS
Canada.Com - December 15, 2007Mike De Souza
CanWest News Service
NUSA DUA, Indonesia -- The Harper government once again found itself cast as one of the bad guys on the international stage along with the United States, because of efforts to block countries at a United Nations climate change summit from recognizing the scientific evidence that stringent and binding targets are necessary to avoid dangerous and irreversible damage to the climate, sources close to the negotiations confirmed.
The major players at the summit appeared to reach a compromise early Saturday morning on establishing a mandate to chart out a course towards a more effective climate change treaty to be finalized in 2009. But sources close to the negotiations suggested that the U.S. and Canada worked in tandem in two separate committees to prevent the summit from recognizing that developed countries would need to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 25 to 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.
Conservation groups at the summit suggested that Canadian Environment Minister John Baird was deliberately wrecking the discussions after he went AWOL from a key meeting organized one night earlier to resolve a negotiating deadlock. Baird was personally invited to attend the meeting by the summit's president on Thursday, which was supposed to be the second-last day of the conference.
But he failed to show up for the marathon negotiating session which finished after three o'clock in the morning.
"What does it say about how serious Mr. Baird is taking these negotiations?" asked Equiterre spokesperson Steven Guilbeault. "Imagine, you're a junior bureaucrat (from Canada), and you have in front of you the equivalent of a U.S. minister or a Chinese minister or a Japanese minister. I mean there's a huge gap in terms of the authority, in terms of how autonomous the decisions you make can be without having to go back and consult the delegation."
Government officials, however, said that Baird read over a draft text of the issues and then decided to give instructions about unresolved issues to key negotiators who were sent to the special meeting of 40 ministers on his behalf. He then went to a meeting of representatives from the so-called Umbrella group countries, including Japan, Ukraine, New Zealand and Australia because he felt that this smaller group was more important, federal officials said.
"The minister's job is to provide direction inspire leadership and get things done," said Prime Minister Stephen Harper's spokesperson Dimitri Soudas, who refused to provide any other explanation on the record. CanWest News Service has confirmed that Baird also left the final phase of crucial negotiations and retreated to his hotel room at least once on Friday, while Canadian negotiators were, according to sources at the conference, creating obstacles to stop Kyoto Protocol countries from recognizing the importance of binding targets. This stalemate came after Baird had spoken to Harper at midnight, Ottawa time on Friday - or one o'clock in the afternoon in Bali -to discuss Canada's strategy.
But a Canadian government official blamed some developing countries for trying to block a final deal.
"A smaller group of countries who did have problems with the text had to meet to sort out their differences and Canada was not one of them," said the official. "Meanwhile, Minister Baird met several of his ministerial counterparts, including Australia and New Zealand, Ukraine and others."
This stalemate came after Baird had spoken to Harper at midnight, Ottawa time on Friday - or one o'clock in the afternoon in Bali - to discuss Canada's strategy.
But the government also noted that the official who had replaced Baird at the table outranked some of his foreign colleagues.
UN officials have said that a new climate change treaty should be finalized by 2009 so that it can come into force after the end of Kyoto's first commitment period in 2012.
But the Harper government, which has already renounced its Kyoto commitments, has said that it cannot even meet more stringent targets over the next 12 years without wrecking the Canadian economy.
Some Canadians at the United Nations climate change summit say they were embarrassed and disappointed after waking up on Friday to see a full-page local newspaper ad that slammed the Harper government's policies on global warming. The full colour ad, purchased by a global civic advocacy group, appeared in a special climate change section of the Jakarta Post.
It featured Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, U.S. President George W. Bush, and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper posing in a mock version of a promotional poster from the movie Titanic. "No targets, no icebergs, just global disaster - coming soon," reads the ad that also appeared in Canada on Friday. "Bali - world don't give in."
Liberal Leader Stephane Dion said the ad demonstrates that Canada has dramatically moved away from its traditional role on the international stage. "I find this very unfortunate," Dion said, following a meeting with former U.S. vice-president Al Gore who expressed similar concerns. "Canada is either silent, leaving the Americans to do the work, or be obstructionist."
In the meantime, developing countries said they would resist "pressure and even threats" of "trade sanctions" from some rich countries to step up the fight against climate change, as talks on a global climate pact went to the wire. About 190 nations are meeting on the Indonesian island resort for talks that are now going for an extra day on Saturday, when the U.N. secretary-general will make an unscheduled return to the conference.
The main negotiating bloc of developing countries, called the G77, said they were not ready to make new efforts to fight climate change by cutting emissions from fossil fuels. They fear curbs would cramp economic growth aimed at lifting millions out of poverty.
With files from Reuters
Mike De Souza's blog: http://communities.canada.com/shareit/blogs/climatechange/default.aspx
Source: Canada.Com - Canada.Com