Harper Criticized On Climate Change At APEC Summit

It is vitally important that a global arrangement on curbing greenhouse gas emissions leaves a level playing field for all economies, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Saturday as leaders of emerging and developed countries met in Singapore.

But Harper’s message of carbon reduction parity was undermined by a leading climate-change expert at the summit, who said Canada’s poor record on reducing emissions has cost it credibility.

The prime minister is attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit, an organization ostensibly dedicated to trade and investment flows in the Pacific region.

But once again environmental policy appears to have hijacked APEC, a 21-country grouping the embodies many of the biggest contradictions and dilemmas of climate-change diplomacy.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd scheduled an ad hoc breakfast meeting Sunday of all 21 APEC leaders to discuss climate change and the looming United Nations conference in Denmark next month on a post-2012 emissions regime.

“This controversy is not going to go away,” said the moderator of an APEC-sponsored forum on climate change and the economy Saturday at the summit.

Harper agrees.

While acknowledging there are “significant differences” among the APEC members over how to tackle climate change, Harper said all leaders recognize it’s an issue that must be addressed.

Emerging economies, including China and Indonesia at the APEC summit, already contribute close to half of all global emissions, Harper said at a media availability, and that proportion will rise to two thirds in the future.

“If we don’t control those, whatever we do in the developed world will have no impact on climate change.”

Harper’s other argument for full global participation is purely economic.

“If everyone is not included, you set up the possible risk that certain countries will gain economic advantage from being included or not included,” he said.

“If some contribute, or some contribute disproportionately, then the economic risks for others become enormous.”

It’s an argument that only highlights Canada’s own track record in relation to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

The Liberal government of the day committed to deep emission reductions, but only slowly developed modest reduction policies as emissions continued to rise. When the Conservatives came to power in 2006, Canada was woefully behind its international commitment and fell even further when the Tories essentially scrapped the Liberal program in favour of rebuilding climate-change policy from scratch. That policy and its regulations remain a work in progress almost four years later.

While the Tories lay the blame at the feet of the Liberals, it is a moot point internationally, according to Prof. Tim Flannery of the Copenhagen Climate Council, a business-oriented scientific group.

“The people of Canada through their government made the commitment, and it needs to honoured somehow or other, or it needs to be dealt with,” the Australian climate-change expert told The Canadian Press.

The UN negotiations in Copenhagen put Canada in “a really difficult position,” he said.

“Canada is by far the biggest defaulter on its Kyoto obligations on a tonnage basis. And as a result of that there is a lack of trust.”

Flannery had just participated in an APEC media forum on climate change and the economy, where he joined several experts in warning that investment and co-operation, rather than “punitive” trade and tax measures, are the most efficient way to reduce emissions.

Canada’s oilsands are in particular danger of becoming a target for tariff censure, Flannery said in an interview, and the government needs to be acting aggressively now to reduce the carbon intensity of their development.

“As we go into Copenhagen and beyond I think there is a real danger that unless we achieve enough as countries we could potentially face border tariffs on carbon, for example.”

He said such policies would be a “catastrophe.”

Canada’s failure is “not all the Harper government’s fault. It’s a long (Canadian) history of mismanaging this issue,” said Flannery.

“But Canada’s credibility is at stake here. And at the national level, just as much as at the individual level, reputation is everything.”

The Harper government has said it is awaiting a detailed U.S. stance on climate change, because the intertwining of the two economies means Canada cannot get out of step with American efforts.

President Barack Obama, who arrived in Singapore late Saturday, has warned that “all nations must accept their responsibility” for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

In a Saturday speech in Tokyo en route to the APEC summit, Obama acknowledged his country is playing catch-up.

“Already, the United States has taken more steps to combat climate change in ten months than we have in our recent history: by embracing the latest science, investing in new energy, raising efficiency standards, forging new partnerships, and engaging in international climate negotiations,” said Obama.

“In short, America knows there is more work to do – but we are meeting our responsibility, and will continue to do so.”

Sultan of Brunei Hasanol Bolkiah (1st L), Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak (2nd L), Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper (3rd L), Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (4 th L) Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama (C), Indonesian President (4th R), US President Barack Obama (3R), Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Chinese President Hu Jintao pose during a group photo at Esplanade in Singapore on November 14, 2009, during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit.