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It may be politically smart for the Conservative government to name a former Parti Québécois premier as head of its federal advisory panel at the United Nations climate-change conference in Bali. Pierre Marc Johnson's mere presence at this 11-day meeting, which opened yesterday, is clearly designed to reassure skeptical Quebeckers that the federal Tories care about the issue, even though Environment Minister John Baird has regrettably dropped opposition critics from Canada's official delegation. But it would be more reassuring if the Tories focused less on their image and more on the economic issues at stake.

The Bali conference is tricky. The Americans, who refused to ratify the 1998 Kyoto Protocol to trim emissions between 2008 and 2012, are equally resistant to mandatory cuts in any post-2012 regime. Major polluters India and China are dead set against mandatory targets, saying their per-capita emissions are relatively low. To add to the pressure-cooker atmosphere, energy-exporting Australia abruptly ratified the Kyoto accord yesterday, adopting targets far more realistic than Canada's vow to slash emissions to an average of 6 per cent below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012.

Bali is no place for Boy Scouts. Canada has to do what it can to bring India, China and the United States into a framework for new talks, while resisting the imposition of more Draconian targets on our economy. Canadian emissions are already roughly 33 per cent above our Kyoto obligations. The economy is growing, the population is increasing, and like other energy-exporting nations, Canada is held responsible for 60 per cent of all emissions from exported products such as natural gas. To meet our Kyoto targets now would wreck the country's economy. But under world trade rules, any party to a treaty may impose sanctions on exports from another party if it can show the non-compliant nation has derived competitive advantage from its failure to comply.

The Bali conference should settle for less ambitious goals, such as fostering technology transfers to developing countries. Canada should commit itself to more talks to set realistic targets while dodging more impossible commitments. Mr. Baird is apparently heading to Bali with his eye on the Tories' domestic political chances. He should pay more attention to the huge policy challenge of tackling global warming without gutting the nation's economy.