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For release: May 16, 2007

United Nations Climate Change Conference:
Canada misleads the world

Bonn, Germany – Canada is undermining the United Nations climate change negotiations by misleading parties, breeding suspicion and targeting developing countries, according to member groups of the Climate Action Network Canada. The UN climate change meetings they are attending in Bonn are intended to lay the groundwork for future global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions post-2012.

The negotiations are now at a critical moment where the world needs leadership from countries in order to move forward towards a negotiated agreement on a formal negotiating mandate at the end of 2007 in Bali. Canada has made several unhelpful interventions so far in Bonn (see weblinks below). “Canada reneged on its Kyoto target in its recent regulatory framework for greenhouse gases and is now misinforming the international community by omitting to mention that it will meet its Kyoto target only in 2025 instead of 2012,” underlined Jean-François Nolet, climate change project manager at Équiterre. “Canada has decided to be part of the problem, and is contaminating the negotiations” added M. Nolet.

Statements by the Canadian delegation at the UN conference have repeatedly misled the world when it comes to assuming its fair share of responsibility for reducing global emissions. “Canada has the audacity to claim its recent regulations for greenhouse gases are in line with the most recent IPCC report,” said Emilie Moorhouse, atmosphere and energy campaigner at the Sierra Club of Canada. “Its shamefully weak targets for 2020 makes a mockery of this entire process and of legitimate efforts to reduce emissions brought forth by other countries. Canada is undermining the trust needed to move forward with deep reductions, and progress has become very difficult.”

Canada has also made repeated hypocritical statements at this meeting, calling on developing countries to do more in the next phase of Kyoto. The average Canadian pollutes the atmosphere five or six times more than the average Chinese, and Canada is looking to do less than Kyoto by 2020. “Canada has no moral authority over China, India, or any other country when it is breaking its promise to them and the world. The IPCC has made it clear that a global effort is required.” said Dale Marshall, climate change policy analyst for the David Suzuki Foundation.

The U.N. conference on climate change taking place in Bonn concludes on Friday.

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