The Canadian Press reports that, “Environment Minister Jim Prentice says he’s feeling international pressure to put climate change high on the agenda at the G20 and G8 summits this summer. And while he’s not exactly a champion of the idea quite yet, he’s not saying No either.”
“Both the G8 and the G20 have dabbled in climate-change politics in the past. The G8 summit in L’Aquila, Italy, last summer saw leaders agree to the bare bones that eventually formed the Copenhagen Accord.”
“Prentice recognizes that the European Union has been advocating for Canada to highlight climate change at the summits, to move the Copenhagen accord ahead. And he’s aware that the G20 summit will group the world’s biggest emitters, as well as key drivers of the Copenhagen accord: the United States, China, India, Brazil and South Africa. But he noted that the accord will need support far beyond the G20 in order to become binding. And he wants to see significant progress on negotiating details well before the June summits, even though the discussions are complicated. Much will depend on a marathon negotiating session set for Bonn at the beginning of June, he said.”
“The first step toward making Copenhagen binding is for countries to outline their emission-reduction targets for the UN by the end of January, said Prentice, and then pony up contributions for the US$30-billion fund agreed to in Copenhagen for developing countries. Canada has done neither, but plans to do both soon, he said.”
The full article is at http://www.canadaeast.com/front/article/928398.
