UPDATE - Canada dismisses report on potential Kyoto damage
Date: 06-Mar-02
Country: CANADA
Author: David Ljunggren
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said ratifying Kyoto would cut gross domestic product by up to 2.5 percent in 2010 and do C$30 billion ($19 billion) worth of damage to the economy.
But Environment Minister David Anderson - himself accused by activists of dragging his feet on Kyoto ratification - said the two groups were working from faulty data.
"They will have credibility difficulties having come out with such precise numbers on the basis of inadequate analysis," he told reporters, saying no one yet knew the potential impact of Kyoto.
"The Canadian public - as far as we can determine from polling - remains fairly firm in its belief that Kyoto should be proceeded with and we should meet our international obligations with respect to climate change," he said.
Ottawa has consistently said it intends to ratify Kyoto, which would oblige Canada to cut its greenhouse emissions by 6 percent from 1990 levels by 2010.
But in the face of strong resistance from businesses, energy producers and several provincial governments, Ottawa has replaced talk of ratification this June with a pledge to hold more consultations with those involved.
Chamber of Commerce president Nancy Hughes Anthony said Kyoto would impose a heavy burden on domestic firms and make their products less competitive in the United States, where President George W. Bush last year abandoned the protocol.
Last month, Bush proposed an alternative plan to Kyoto that would use voluntary incentives to get industry to reduce emissions. Ottawa thinks his proposals do not go far enough and want them to be toughened up.
Anderson later this week held an hour's one-on-one talks with U.S. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency head Christine Todd Whitman and expressed his concerns about the Bush plan.
"I made her fully aware that we don't think it goes far enough. She defended the proposals," Anderson told Reuters after the talks.
"My belief is that we'll see some improvement in this (plan)," he said, adding that he would be flying to Washington on Wednesday for more climate change talks with Todd Whitman as well as senior figures in the State Department, White House, National Security Council and Congress.
Environmentalist group Greenpeace called on Canada this week to follow the lead of the European Union, which earlier in the day agreed to be bound by Kyoto.
"Doubt over Canada's ratification gives hope to polluters. It's no accident that after Ottawa backed off ratifying by June, powerful groups have launched Kyoto attacks," said Greenpeace climate change campaigner Steven Guilbeault.
Canada's association of manufacturers and exporters said last week that implementing Kyoto could slash 450,000 jobs and cost around C$40 billion - figures which Prime Minister Jean Chretien immediately rejected.
Hughes Anthony said the government needed to produce a detailed plan showing exactly how Canada intends to meet its Kyoto targets and showing the effect on every region.
"Business is prepared to support a national plan on climate change, but we need a solution that reduces worldwide greenhouse gas emissions without crippling the Canadian economy in relation to our NAFTA partners," she said.
Kyoto has long been on the hit-list of the petroleum producers association, whose members rely heavily on booming exports of natural gas and oil to the United States.