Former Negotiator Accuses Canadian Gov. Of Doing Whatever It Takes To Block Climate Action In Durban

[hatrack]

DURBAN, South Africa — A retired Canadian government negotiator who worked on one of the world’s most successful environmental treaties says that Canada's negotiating tactics at international climate change talks are impeding progress, while protecting the interests of a single industry. “I’m not so sure the objective is to achieve progress,” said Vic Buxton, 68. “I think the objective appears to me to be to make sure nothing is put in place in an international regulatory sense that can impede economic development in the Alberta tarsands.”

Buxton, reached by phone in Ottawa, was one of the key figures representing Canada in the 1987 Montreal Protocol negotiations to restrict pollution that depletes the Earth’s ozone layer, which protects life from the sun’s harmful radiation.

Like the Kyoto Protocol on climate change from 1997, the Montreal agreement was founded on a principle that developed countries were responsible for creating an environmental issue and should therefore pay most of the costs to fix the problem they caused.

But Environment Minister Peter Kent has challenged this principle, arguing that emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil should not get special treatment since they are among the leading sources of greenhouse gas emissions that trap heat in the atmosphere and cause global warming.

EDIT

http://www.canada.com/business/Former+negotiator+says+Canada+blocking+Durban+talks/5809555/story.html

[applegrove]

1. The canadian government is creepy. Who would ever think that would happen.