OTTAWA and BANFF - Senior ministers are expected to urge Jean Chrétien at a Cabinet meeting tomorrow to forgo ratifying the Kyoto treaty on climate change and instead look for a made-in-Canada alternative.
The ministers are expected to argue that the treaty is unworkable and a danger to the national economy, sources said.
In Banff, concerns of the apparent softening of Canada's position dominated a weekend meeting of G8 environment ministers. European ministers indicated Canada and the U.S. are becoming increasingly isolated, especially by Canada's hope to obtain credits for selling cleaner energy to the U.S.
Margot Wallström, Environment Commissioner for the European Union, rejected the idea, saying Canada has already received generous concessions in Kyoto negotiations.
''It's too late to reopen the Kyoto Protocol to help Canada,'' she said. ''We still hope Canada will ratify the Kyoto Protocol. It would be very sad if Canada would not ratify in the end,'' she said at the close of meetings yesterday.
With the United States opting out, Ms. Wallström said ''that road is closed ... It involves a partner which has chosen to stand outside Kyoto Protocol. So the blame should not be on those of us who are inside the Kyoto Protocol but rather to push the Americans to come back on board.''
But outright ratification by Canada is still the subject of disagreement among Canadian ministers. The expected cabinet discussion tomorrow follows a meeting last week of a special committee on Kyoto chaired by John Manley, the Deputy Prime Minister.
At that meeting of the Kyoto reference committee, growing concerns over the protocol were voiced, with the majority opposing the treaty, sources said.
Mr. Chrétien has said Canada would like to be in a position to announce it will ratify the Kyoto Protocol this year. However, sources said key elements governing the implementation of the treaty were still missing from this first presentation to the committee, leaving questions about how Canada could sign up to an undertaking with such wide and unknown economic implications unanswered.
A key element in Canada's stance -- its desire to have clean energy exports to the United States recognized by the other Kyoto treaty members -- will not be properly dealt with until November at the next international session of a Kyoto working group.
The potential exports of clean energy such as natural gas to the United States could reduce Canada's responsibility for cutting greenhouse gases by as much as 30%.
Washington rejected the Kyoto treaty process and David Anderson, the Environment Minister, said Canada is facing an uphill battle in getting the other Kyoto countries to recognize that energy sales to the United States reduce world-wide levels of greenhouse gases because the natural gas sold to the United States would replace coal being used there as fuel for electricity generating plants.
''How can you have an economic plan that makes any sense when a major issue like credit for exports to the United States is not known?'' a government source said.
The question of how the treaty might compromise Canada's competitive position with the United States was also raised at the Kyoto reference committee meeting last week, sources added.
Some ministers feel ratification would burden Canadian industry, particularly the oil and gas sector, which is set to be a major exporter to the United States.
In the decades ahead, the United States, as a non-signatory to Kyoto, would not face the same burden as its northern neighbour.
The Kyoto reference committee also said the treaty carries major implications for lifestyle and consumption habits.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, Canada is expected to reduce greenhouse gases -- caused mainly by burning fossil fuels -- to a level 6% below the levels produced by in 1990. Yet, this target, to be met by 2010-2012, is just the first step in a long process of reducing greenhouse gases and then starting to eliminate them from the atmosphere.
Committee members expressed concern that Canada is committing itself to a long-term process without an adequate understanding of what that might mean economically and socially in the years ahead.
Mr. Chrétien, who will be chairing the cabinet session after returning from a lengthy trip to Africa, is expected to hear that Canada needs to tailor its own Kyoto-like plan involving a much wider approach than simply setting targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The Prime Minister is expected to be told that Canada needs to have a policy that reflects the country's northern climate and the fact that there are huge distances between communities.
Such a policy should also take into account technology investment and development, urban and rural issues including transportation and alternative energy development.
Mr. Anderson is working to develop a cost analysis of Kyoto and a plan to implement the treaty. The economic analysis is expected to be ready by late April or early May. The federal and provincial energy and environment ministers are slated to discuss the Kyoto implementation plan at a meeting in May in Charlottetown.
Alberta, which is opposed to ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, is planning to present its own greenhouse reduction plan at the meeting.
At the meeting in Banff of G8 environment ministers hosted by Mr. Anderson, he attempted to focus on other environmental issues in preparation for an upcoming international conference in South Africa. But news conferences focused almost entirely on Canada's commitment to Kyoto.
This irritated Mr. Anderson, who said the meeting was supposed to discuss other issues, such as environmental impacts on children's health, in preparation for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), an international conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, in August.
Questioned on climate change at a closing news conference yesterday, Mr. Anderson said: ''A child dies every 10 seconds! Every 10 seconds! Think how many children have died since we began this press conference and then say to me, keep talking about only one subject, only one subject, only one subject -- ignore anything else, including those children who are dying. I am saying to you it is very important to have a successful WSSD and we have to concentrate on issues that aren't always climate change. I don't think that's an extreme position. Please, let's focus a bit on what the meeting here was all about.''
Environmental organizations observing the closed meetings criticized the G8 Environment leaders for relegating climate change to an informal, 45-minute breakfast discussion yesterday. An expression of general concerns over climate change was limited to four sentences in the ministers' official four-page communique from the meetings.
Christine Todd-Whitman, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, denied the United States tried to limit climate change discussions at the meetings and that it has pressured Canada not to ratify Kyoto.
''We have never taken a position of standing in the way of any nation's endorsement of ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. That is not our position. We would never do that.''
She and Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State of Environment for Great Britain, said there are numerous other meetings to discuss Kyoto. The United States, Ms. Todd-Whitman noted, has committed US$4.5-billion to climate change initiatives, with a firm commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 18% over the next 10 years.
''Given the size of our economy, an 18% reduction in intensity is a very significant reduction and it does not mean we stop there,'' she said.
The problem with the United States' position, said Jürgen Trittin, the German Minister for the Environment, is that Kyoto caps greenhouse gas emissions to below 1990 levels. ''Kyoto does not mean to slow down the emission increase, Kyoto means to there is an absolute cap on greenhouse gas emissions,'' he said.
Mr. Trittin said Germany does not accept North American concerns that Kyoto will harm their economies.
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