SPACE WIRE
Kyoto climate deal feels heat in Canadian election
TORONTO (AFP) Jun 16, 2004
The Kyoto climate change protocol, hanging by a thread during Russia's tortuous deliberations on ratification, may be set for another blow if the opposition Conservatives win Canada's looming general election.

Surging opposition Conservative leader Stephen Harper has pledged to cut off federal support for work to implement the protocol, aimed at reducing greenhouse gases, even though Canada has ratified the document.

His remarks have sparked alarm in the environmental movement, but with the focus on the perceived sleaze of Prime Minister Paul Martin's Liberal government, have yet to connect with voters.

Harper and Martin are neck and neck in polls ahead of the June 28 election, as the prime minister battles to hang on to his job.

"Kyoto is never going to be passed and I think we'd be better to spend our time on realistic pollution control measures," Harper said last week.

"Carbon dioxide does not cause or contribute to smog, and the Kyoto treaty would do nothing to reduce or prevent smog," he was quoted as saying by the Toronto Star.

The Conservative platform does not mention Kyoto by name, saying only that the party will ensure Canada becomes an "environmental world leader" by pursuing clean air, water, land and energy.

But the party has signalled it will redirect public spending aimed at fulfilling the terms of Kyoto to efforts to cut pollution and smog, thereby nullifying Canada's role in the treaty.

"Canada would no longer have any crediblity whatsoever on this issue," John Bennett, chief policy advisor in Canada for the Sierra Club, an environmental lobby group, told AFP.

Harper has also cast doubt on the science surrounding global warming, using language strikingly similar to the US administration's position, which has outraged environmentalists.

"My suspicion is that human activities have some impact upon that but I think the jury is out on a lot of the actual specific trends," said Harper, in an interview with the Frontier Centre, a Canadian think-tank.

"We dont support implementation of the Kyoto targets. We think they are unfair and unrealistic and our platform proposes we focus more directly on pollution control."

Harper, is a member of parliament for Canada's oil boom province of Alberta, and environmentalists claim his views have been coloured by the positions of big oil producing companies.

His political opponents have targeted his Kyoto position. "I feel very strongly about upholding our international commitment to Kyoto and Canada will keep its word," said Martin on June, 9.

Environmental organisations are meanwhile touting a 2003 poll by the Ekos group for the Canadian government which showed 82 percent of Canadians support the Kyoto Protocol.

The protocol requires industrialised signatory countries to cut emissions of greenhouse gases, the carbon-based pollution that is a by-product of burning fossil fuels and which is blamed for driving climate change.

While Canada's rejection of the Kyoto protocol would be unlikely to hole it beyond repair, the agreement would surely be dented.

Some lobbyists are concerned Canada's withdrawal would also boost sceptics of Kyoto who already point to US and Australian rejection of the protocol.

Under the protocol, Canada is committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by six percent by 2010 from 1990 levels, or about 240 megatonnes (million tonnes) a year.

Russian President Vladimir Putin last month cheered environmentalists by promising to speed up implementation of Kyoto, in an apparent deal under which the European Union promised to back Russia's entry into the World Trade Organisation.

Russia's participation is crucial, as its entry would turn the protocol into a treaty, under the deal's complicated ratification arithmetic.

Moscow has been on the hot seat ever since the United States under President George W. Bush in March 2001 nixed US participatioin in Kyoto, branding it too costly for the US economy, and unfair because pollution cuts only apply to developed countries.

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