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Prime Minister Stephen Harper says it premature to be demanding climate-change goals of other countries, but he hopes that the participants at this weekend's APEC conference can at least agree those goals must be set.

"We haven't reached the point where we can dictate targets to the rest of the world," the Prime Minister told a late afternoon press conference on Friday.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard and U.S. President George Bush want the 21 nations that are members of the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation forum to agree in principle to the setting of emission reduction targets at some point after other national conferences. And they want developing nations like China, which are some of the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases, to be signatories to the agreement.

Mr. Harper pointed out that the reduction targets set out in the Kyoto Accord — targets that his government rejects as being too costly to the environment — were never approved by countries that produce two third's of the world's emissions. And he said he believes that a G8 meeting held last June in Berlin produced the most reasonable approach to cutting the production of the gases that have been linked to global warming.

"Canada, Japan and others have articulated a specific goal that we would like to see which is a reduction of emissions by half by the year 2050. Not everybody even in the G8 yet subscribes to that," said Mr. Harper.

"I think if we got the same kind of statement here that suggests that there has to be a goal and everybody has to be involved in reaching that goal, I think we will have made progress."

Mr. Harper took to the world stage Friday to lambaste the climate-change record of former Liberal governments and to reaffirm his commitment to balancing environmental action with economic sustainability.

The Prime Minister was one of five international leaders — along with the heads of Russia, China, Chile and the United States — who were invited to address APEC summit, a meeting of about 200 business and political officials that preceded the meeting of APEC leaders this weekend.

In a draft version of the speech handed out before he took the stage, Mr. Harper spoke in strong terms about the need for action to reduce the emission of greenhouse, calling global warming one of the most important international public-policy challenges of our time.

"Canada wants to be a world leader in the fight against climate change and in the development of clean energy," said Mr. Harper, who blamed past policies for stymieing those goals.

"For at least a decade most governments, including Canada's government, paid what can charitably be called lip service to the issue of climate change," he told the international forum. "Because they were unwilling to tell the public that reducing carbon emissions must entail real economic costs in the short term, governments responded to the problem with little more than political rhetoric."

The Prime Minister, who five years ago dismissed the science that linked emissions to climate change as tentative and contradictory, said "the weight of scientific evidence holds that our atmosphere is getting hotter and that human activity is a significant contributor."

The physical evidence, he said, can be found in the expanding amount of open water in the Northwest Passage and the mild British Columbia winters that have created ideal conditions for pine-beetle infestations.

But unless countries strike a balance between environmental protection and economic prosperity, the environment will never be given the priority it should, he said.

"We need to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions with strategies that are comprehensive, practical and realistic," the Prime Minister said.

There must be clear goals for all major emitters, he said, but they must be fair and economically realistic, they must not unduly burden any single country, they must be flexible so that countries can choose their own policies, and they must support the development of better technologies.

The Prime Minister, who spoke at midnight EDT, also had bilateral meetings with Helen Clark, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, and Alan Garcia, the President of Peru. No other bilaterals have been arranged except for a meeting next week with Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

Mr. Harper said at a late-afternoon press conference that the discussion with Ms. Clark was open and frank and centred on the historic links that have created a special bond between the two countries. Direct flights between Auckland and Vancouver that will begin in November will be particularly important to New Zealand, he said, because it is a "country a long way from its best friends."

With Mr. Garcia, he said, free trade would be the subject on the table.

It is unusual for world leaders to introduce domestic rivalries into addresses they deliver to international forums. Opposition critics called for the resignation of former environment minister Rona Ambrose last November after she derided the Liberal environmental record at a conference in Kenya.

But Mr. Harper has displayed no reticence to take swipes at other parties — particularly the Liberals — when he has the ear of other nations.

During a public address to G8 leaders in Berlin in June, for instance, he said: "Like Germany, we in Canada are also renewing — both at home and abroad — through new leadership."

Opposition parties insisted the government sign on to the greenhouse-gas reduction targets stipulated in the Kyoto accord on climate change — a demand that threatens to dominate the parliamentary agenda this fall and has opposition leaders threatening to bring down the Conservative minority after a Throne Speech in October.

Kyoto Protocol provisions on climate change require Canada to reduce emissions by 6 per cent, over 1990 levels, by 2012. The Conservatives have instead committed to reducing Canada's total emissions by 20 per cent relative to 2006 levels.

The previous Liberal government did not manage to meet Kyoto targets and emissions increased significantly during the 13 years they held office.

But they say they developed a plan that would have set the country on the track toward achieving the international standard and the Conservatives killed — then reinstated — a significant number of Liberal environmental initiatives during their first year in office.

"When my government took office a little over 18 months ago, we inherited a patchwork of programs that just weren't doing the job," Mr. Harper told the APEC meeting.

Environmentalists have criticized the government for imposing "intensity targets" rather than actual targets on industry that allows the amount of emissions to grow as production expands. But Mr. Harper defended the strategy in his speech to the political and business leaders yesterday, saying it will allow Canada to square effective environmental action with the reality that it has a growing population and growing economic output.

Canadian business, he said, is being given the time and the flexibility it needs to make environmental change work.

"We're leaving it up to business to decide how to reduce their emissions," he said. "They know best how to run their operations."

The Prime Minister told the group that Canada wants to lead "not by lecturing, but by example."

Critics of harsh measures to fight climate change have pointed out that Canada produces only 2 per cent of global greenhouse gases and no real reductions will occur until the large polluters like China adopt strict environmental policies. And Mr. Harper signalled, in advance of the APEC conference, that he would press for some international action.

Chinese President Hu Jintao backed a declaration this week between the United States and Australia that would see the 21 APEC members agree in principle to the setting of emission-reduction targets at some point in the future. But Mr. Hu, in meetings this week with the U.S. and Australian leaders, ruled out targets and reaffirmed China's commitment to the United Nations as the lead forum for multilateral climate-change negotiations.