OTTAWA (AFP) - Opposition leaders said they would highjack Ottawa's role at upcoming Kyoto Protocol talks, saying Prime Minister Stephen Harper's minority government had failed to represent Canadians' climate change fears.
Liberal leader Bill Graham and separatist Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe said they would send representatives to Nairobi, Kenya, next week to urge delegates to set stricter greenhouse gas emission reduction targets in phase two of the pact.
The two opposition parties have no official standing at the talks.
But Duceppe said: "Our spokespeople will give our position to other countries and reporters. We will not shut up and line up behind the government and pretend that all of Canada and Quebec agree with the minister's position."
The unusual move, they said, is justified because Environment Minister Rona Ambrose was working "to weaken the goals (of Kyoto) and stall negotiations" on reducing carbon emissions that cause global warming.
"Instead of urging hold-out countries to work within Kyoto, she has promised anti-Kyoto positions and rhetoric on the world stage. She has become a climate change anti-leader," Graham told reporters.
"It's dangerous to the future of the planet," he said. "Canadians want our government to be a leader, a world leader on this issue."
Canada had agreed under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to six percent below 1990 levels by 2012, but a recent environmental audit found emissions had instead increased by 26.6 percent.
Ambrose, who will also travel to Nairobi next week, introduced a bill in mid-October to reduce Canada's CO2 emissions by 45-65 percent by 2050, based on 2003 emissions. But it was widely panned.
The draft legislation would also apply intensity-based targets until 2020, allowing emissions to continue to rise until then.
Opposition parties want Ottawa to adhere to its short-term targets; commit to stronger, binding targets for Kyoto's second phase; promote limiting to one year a revision period of the accord to avoid delays in adopting stringent reduction targets for the second phase; and support assistance for developing countries.