Harper Trying To Distance Himself From G8 Climate Goals - Wants "Concensus" With US, China

[hatrack]

OTTAWA -- Prime Minister Stephen Harper distanced himself Monday from a strongly worded international statement about fighting climate change, explaining Canada is trying to craft a consensus to include the United States and China in a new pact to tackle global warming.

European countries are asking the G8 nations at an upcoming summit in Germany to endorse a declaration that proposes a follow-up agreement to the Kyoto protocol that sets mandatory targets to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and limit global warming to two degrees Celsius. But Harper suggested he would only sign a deal that the biggest polluters could live with.

"The fact of the matter is that in order to have a post-2012 effective international protocol, we need to have all major emitters, including the United States and China, as part of that effort," Harper said in the Commons. "Canada will be working to try to create that consensus."

European countries, who have pledged to reduce greenhouse-gas pollution by 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020, have based their declaration on warnings from climate experts about the dangers of allowing average global temperatures to rise more than two degrees. Although a recent United Nations report concluded that global warming of more than two degrees could lead to extinction of many species on earth, U.S. administration officials are reportedly trying to water down the statement in behind-the-scenes negotiations.

EDIT

http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/news/national/story.html?id=5394f889-3906-4d9b-b8e7-4aba30e7d1f8

[MrPrax]

1. BUT!!!

It wasn't Harper's government that missed the even minimal Kyoto target by a whopping 24%....remember when we were all asleep and let corporate raiders like Cretin and Martin tell us about the environment.

Remember when partisans in Canada kicked that issue around just three years ago because it made them look very very bad during an election.

So another corporate POS is playing games and killing the planet...with help.

So when will Canada take the environment seriously and stop playing partisan games with their 'green' positioning?

[GliderGuider]

2. None of the big players are going to do anything. Steve is green with envy.

USA, Australia, India, China - all the big players are sitting resolutely on their hands. This is what we can expect on all the big environmental issues, from Global Heating to Peak Oil to the death of the oceans to chemical pollution to soil fertility depletion to water depletion. All they will do is try to figure out more profitable ways to make things worse.

What we are witnessing here is genetically-driven behaviour at its most naked and obvious. Because of its genetic origins this behaviour will never change. We will keep our collective foot firmly on the accelerator until we feel the air under our wheels as we hurtle off the cliff. This is Thelma and Louise environmentalism at its finest.

The sooner we come to terms with this the better. There are urgent things we should be doing, but saving this civilization is simply no longer on the agenda. I'm more convinced than ever that trying to seed the next cycle of civilization will bear much more fruit than trying to save this one.

[applegrove]

3. Excuses, excuses. The Canadian public wants a sustainable future

and healthy lives for their kids.