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Climate change draws thousands to Montreal gathering

Nunavut's environment minister to join scientists, activists and politicians from almost 200 countries

JANE GEORGE

Over the next few weeks, expect to hear a lot of talk about climate change, more talk about new sources of energy, and perhaps less talk about the Kyoto Protocol, as the world looks for new ways to curb global warming.

The pressure to reach a global consensus will build when more than 10,000 scientific experts, activists and delegates from nearly 200 governments meet in Montreal from Nov. 28 to Dec. 9 to come up with a climate change strategy that works for everyone.

High-ranking international officials suggest this strategy will focus on new technology that can provide energy in ways that are secure, cost-efficient and sustainable, rather than the emission cap system set out in the Kyoto Protocol.

The selling point of this approach will be the economic benefits of developing new energy sources.

Use of these new energy sources are expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions created by burning fossil fuels, which are heating up the atmosphere and changing the climate.

The plan for the future would include developing countries such as China, India and Brazil, which were left out of the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This new approach to dealing with global warming is also likely to be attractive to the United States, which never ratified the Kyoto protocol.

"It will not help anyone if we don't have the U.S. included," Connie Hedegaard, Denmark's minister of the environment, told Nunatsiaq News.

The new approach would forgo mandatory reductions on greenhouse gas emissions, which the U.S. refused to accept in the Kyoto Protocol on economic grounds (and, a study released this week says complying with the emission reduction targets set by Kyoto has a price, and will cost hundreds of thousands of jobs and reduce GDP in Germany, Britain, Spain and Italy).

Instead, the new plan will ask different sectors, such as the steel industry, to set and meet goals, and provide incentives to make it worthwhile.

The European Union and Canada have been working hard to ensure the U.S. supports this approach.

Yet officials acknowledge that not everyone will be happy with a deal that doesn't include mandatory targets to reduce emissions.

"You have to be quite pragmatic. Any action is better than no action at all, and you can't be demanding that if you don't sign, you're out," said Jan-Erik Enestam, Finland's minister of the environment, during a recent interview in Reykjavik, Iceland.

"It's a global problem. It must be a global cooperation. Every single country, every single individual, has to deliver something."

The massive international gathering in Montreal that will try to build this global cooperation is known as "COP-11." It's the 11th "Conference of the Parties," made up of those countries that signed on to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

COP-11 is also the first meeting of the 155 countries that ratified the Kyoto Protocol, which requires developed nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 5.2 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012.

The Government of Nunavut will be part of the Canadian delegation. Olayuk Akesuk, the GN's minister of environment, said he'll promote Nunavut as "being affected more than any other jurisdiction in Canada" by global warming.

Jan-Erik Enestam said he's optimistic about progress in Montreal because "time is speaking in favour of common action." He points to the recent hurricane Katrina that has made U.S. access to oil less secure and more expensive and, at the same time, raised awareness about climate change in the U.S.

"You can't scientifically prove they are the result of climate change, but for ordinary people, something must be done. It's easy to say, 'it's climate change: why don't you do something?' So, there will be political pressure on the (U.S.) federal government to do something."

Enestam said he senses there's political will to move ahead, but he said bureaucrats, who are familiar with the wording of every climate change agreement over the past 20 years, are "the real people who are deciding whether it goes or not."

"I think it would be much, much easier if the politicians could take the decisions without backing from officials," he said.

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