News

Environment Minister John Baird dismissed the Liberal's party's newly announced climate change plan as a money grab and a weak effort.

He says it's the fifth plan announced by Stephane Dion and the Liberals, but it's no better than the other four.

Speaking from Germany, where he has been meeting with other ministers from the G-8 as well as the major developing countries, Mr. Baird said the Conservative plan, to be revealed later this month, will compare favourably with Mr. Dion's program.

He said the Liberal plan aims at the major producers of greenhouse gases, while the Tory plan will set targets for industry across the board.

Mr. Baird said the international meeting agreed that climate change must be addressed and that technology must play a key role.

He said the meeting wasn't a negotiating session, but rather a way for ministers to reach a general consensus on the issue before the G-8 leaders' summit in June.

“I think we've come much farther than we thought possible at the start,” German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said at the end of the three-day meeting in Potsdam, on the outskirts of Berlin.

The meeting came as global warming has rocketed up the political agenda — helped by a string of hard-hitting environmental reports and an unusually warm winter.

World powers also face the looming task of negotiating a successor to the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Mr. Baird said in a teleconference with reporters in Ottawa that the meeting gave him an opportunity to stress that Canada has a plan for climate change and wants to join international talks on measures that go beyond Kyoto.

“One of the key points Canada made is that global actions must be guided by two principles: environmental sustainability and global prosperity in order to ensure our global success on the protection of our planet for future generations,” he said.

“Environmental protection and economic growth go hand in hand and it's key that we assume our responsibilities.”

He said the Conservative government will reveal its climate change policy later this month and that it will be better than the Liberal program announced by Mr. Dion on Friday.

“We'll coming forward with regulations for all industrial sectors in the coming weeks and there will be obviously targets for industry cross the board,” he said.

“I'm concerned that Mr. Dion's plan looks like a money grab, with very little pressure or focus on actual emissions reduction.

“I think that our plan ... will look rather favourable compared to the weak effort by Mr. Dion.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Gabriel said there was common ground on many points, including a general acceptance of the scientific explanation for the causes of global warming.

Mr. Gabriel said the ministers also agreed that industrialized countries are responsible for most of the past greenhouse gas emissions and on the need to help developing countries control their emissions.

As well, he said industrialized countries need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions more than mandated by current agreements.

EU leaders last week agreed that the bloc's greenhouse gas emissions would be cut by at least 20 per cent from 1990 levels over the next 13 years — and said they could fall by 30 per cent if other countries match the EU's initial pledge.

The 27- member bloc also plans to have a fifth of its energy come from renewable sources by 2020.

Germany — which currently chairs both the EU and G8 — hopes that the EU deal will set an example to others. The U.S. — the world's biggest polluter — has refused to join Kyoto, which also does not include fast-growing countries such as China and India.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she hopes to follow the EU commitment with another “step in the right direction” when G8 leaders meet in Germany's Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm in June.

But Achim Steiner, the executive director of the UN Environment Program, said there is still much work to be done.

“The way the discussions went here gives cause for optimism,” Mr. Steiner said. “But we have not yet reached the point where we can say that in Heiligendamm we'll make the big breakthrough.”

— with files by Associated Press