Minister of the Environment Jim Prentice.Adrian Wyld
Even before leaders at the Asia Pacific summit in Singapore announced this weekend that a final climate-change deal is not possible at Copenhagen talks, Canada's Environment Minister Jim Prentice believed no agreement would be reached.
In an interview with The Globe and Mail on Friday, Mr. Prentice called the world summit on climate change in Copenhagen the "mother of all negotiations" and said leaders would probably only be able to come up with a framework of agreement.
Mr. Prentice is in Copenhagen today to attend a closed-door, two-day meeting with other senior government officials from around the planet for last-minute talks before next month's conference.
What do you expect will be accomplished at this week's meeting?
The purpose of the session will be to try to find some common ground, some consensus on the critical questions. There will be very detailed discussions taking place on the critical building blocks and some of the points of difficulty.
Are you concerned that Canada may tarnish its credibility by heading to Copenhagen without tabling first its own climate plans?
No. The purpose of Copenhagen is to arrive at an international consensus. The purpose of the conference is not for each country to table its domestic policies. What we are trying to do in Copenhagen is to try and replace Kyoto with an overall international framework.
Do you think public expectations about the Copenhagen summit have been too high?
There have been very high expectations of Copenhagen and I think that's why you've heard over the last six weeks, not only myself, but many of the negotiators from other countries, plus people associated with the UN, coming out and, some have said, being pessimistic. But it's more to be realistic about what's going to happen so that expectations aren't misaligned. It will not be possible to get a full international treaty in Copenhagen. The best we can do is frame out the points of consensus, the points of disagreement and build and maintain some momentum around a shorter political agreement.
If a legally binding agreement isn't reached in Copenhagen, when do you expect it will happen?
Hopefully, if we can maintain momentum in the year that follows Copenhagen, we will be into the next Conference of the Parties. I think it's important to put Copenhagen in context. The purpose of the conference is to arrive at the new international framework that will apply from 2012 forward. It's 2009 now - we have some time. We have some time in 2010 to try and put that framework in place, and conceivably work on it in 2011.
It is the critical international architecture that we need to see. It's very difficult to finalize either domestic policies or even continental policies in the absence of clarity on what the international rules are going to be. That's why we need to make progress in Copenhagen. The world is certainly watching.
Why doesn't Canada take more of a leadership role heading into Copenhagen?
I don't agree that we don't have a leadership role. Canada has been a constructive player at the table. Our country does occupy a position of being an energy superpower and we aspire to have very responsible environmental policies but the policies that were negotiated by the previous government under Kyoto have been very ill-suited to our country and are not workable.