Chief climate negotiator hopeful for global agreement in Durban talks

OTTAWA – Amidst all the acrimony and apocalyptic reports about efforts to prevent global climate change, the Canadian government says it sees a glimmer of hope.

Guy Saint-Jacques, Canada’s chief climate negotiator, is on his way to international talks in Durban, South Africa this weekend, as the Kyoto Protocol comes to an end and the world seeks a new way forward.

“Hopefully there will be an agreement to launch a new round of negotiations that would lead to a new, single, comprehensive climate-change regime,” Saint-Jacques said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

Environment Minister Peter Kent will join him in Durban in 10 days, likely with substantial new funding in hand to help developing countries deal with the effects of global warming.

By the time the ministers from around the world meet, Saint-Jacques feels there will be enough goodwill to at least hammer out a timetable and some concrete objectives.

“It’s really our hope that we embark in that direction, because that’s the only way to be able to raise the level of ambition and address this problem.”

The world has been hit by a series of gloomy reports in the last few weeks, warning that countries are locking in higher emissions levels by increasing reliance on fossil fuels and that they are courting extreme weather events in the near future.

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But despite the heightened sense of looming catastrophe, agreement on how to deal with climate change remains elusive.

Europe wants a new phase of the Kyoto pact, but only if it’s binding. Key emerging markets such as China, India and Brazil don’t want to commit to any emissions-reductions targets up front.

At the same time, American climate policy is in disarray and Canada doesn’t want to sign on to anything that the Americans aren’t a part of.

But Saint-Jacques said he sees signs of flexibility and feels there may be enough common ground to launch talks for a new, comprehensive, climate-change pact that reduces greenhouse gases and also helps countries deal with the inevitable effects of global warming.

“I am reasonably optimistic,” he said. “I thing we can get a good, balanced package that can address mitigation, but also adaptation.”

The Europeans have a proposal with enough in it to bring other countries to the table, he explained. Developing countries realize that they will not have access to aid money for climate-change adaptation unless a path forward is found.

And while emerging markets are concerned that huge undertakings would hurt their fragile economies, there is a willingness to allow them to move more gradually in their emissions reductions, Saint-Jacques added.

But not at the expense of timing.

“They want to buy eight years,” he said. “We need to get action more quickly than that.

“We say, let’s face reality. The world has changed since 1992 (when talks for the Kyoto Protocol first started), and to increase the level of ambition we really have to create a level playing field and include all major emitters and try to reach that new agreement as soon as possible.”

But critics say Canada is making a big mistake by turning its back on the Kyoto Protocol, acting as a ringleader in an effort to throw out two decades of experience dealing with climate change.

“Our government has created the space for other governments to go to the wrong side of the fracture here,” Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said in an interview.

Indeed, Canada has been blacklisted by environmentalists again and again at international negotiations and Kent has said he expects the same thing to happen this time.

But at least one neutral observer believes there is a reason for limited optimism in Durban.

“To salvage the mess, what you’ll probably see is an agreement to negotiate (a treaty) by 2015 – to give everybody some breathing room,” said Dave Sawyer, director of climate and energy at the International Institute for Sustainable Development. “That would be considered success.”

But he’s afraid that practical ways to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions will be left at the wayside as countries’ negotiators get caught up in which should come first, the rules of engagement or the emissions-reduction targets.

Much progress has been made in promoting low-carbon development around the world, he said and none of those plans should be forgotten in the heat of negotiating a treaty.