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Address by Prime Minister Paul Martin on the announcement that Canada will host the Conference of the Parties (CoP 11). Text and audio available
February 16, 2005
Montreal, Quebec
Listen to the address by the Prime Minister (Windows Media Audio)
Today marks a significant milestone for Canada and for the world. Today, the Kyoto Protocol enters into force and becomes legally binding on 35 nations and the European Community. We are entering a new era in international efforts to address and reduce the risk of climate change – and in doing so, to improve the quality of life that will be enjoyed by our children and by future generations.
It was during my first term in the House of Commons that I was named the Liberal party’s environment critic. That was 1991, right about the time the Conservative government was appointing a new Environment Minister, the Honourable Jean Charest – and now that he’s no longer a Tory, I can admit in public that he was pretty darn good at the job.
At that time, models of climate change were predicting that increases in greenhouse gases would cause our world and our nation to experience more severe and frequent weather events, such as droughts and floods, and to undergo startling and large-scale transformations, such as retreating glaciers and rising sea levels. Back then, the warnings were set in the future tense. But in many ways, that future is now. In 2005, the predictions of the 1990s are becoming reality -- and not just in the models of research scientists. You can see and sense the changes. You only have to visit the Arctic, as I did last summer, to confirm it.
And it is not only life in northern Canada that is changing. A wider evolution is underway elsewhere in our country and throughout the world. Scientists can measure it. We can feel it. And because we can feel it, we have a growing understanding that our practices and economy must change – that we must become more efficient and less polluting if we are to help preserve our world, and also if we are to successfully compete in it.
Canada has already set out and initialized part of its plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. There will be details of further initiatives in next week’s budget. But at the same time, understand this: Meeting our Kyoto commitments is only one part of a much broader national initiative, a major multi-year effort to create a healthier environment and a stronger economy, to deliver cleaner air and cleaner water, to make Canada an even better place to live, and to become a world leader in developing environmental technology.
Our country is uniquely positioned to take the momentum of this important day, and build on it. Now that the Protocol is in effect, the world will pay serious attention to climate change in 2005. We need to grasp this opportunity and focus on the need to bring together industrialized countries as part of a broad international effort to reduce GHG emissions. We must set the objective of developing a complete global plan for atmospheric protection, a plan that includes other countries, like Brazil, China, India and the United States.
And that is why I am proud to announce today that Canada has accepted to host in Montreal the 11th conference of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Here in Montreal, the nations of the world will work to establish a framework for success in reducing the risks of climate change – an initiative that will deliver concrete and sustainable results.
Achieving such progress is profoundly in our national interest. Canadians value a clean environment. They want Canada to be at the forefront in developing an environmentally sustainable economy. Chairing this conference affords Canada the opportunity to shape the environmental agenda beyond Kyoto. It will take inventiveness and creativity to attract nations to a common effort to protect our atmosphere and our planet. And I can think of no better person to help lead this international effort than our Minister of the Environment, Stéphane Dion.
Minister Dion will hold the gavel at the conference. He will work with the United Nations and the secretariat to help frame the debates. And I have no doubt that he will bring his determination and passion to helping set the world on a course toward a truly sustainable climate change plan. The message he’ll convey to the world is this: We can only succeed together and we must succeed. Thank you.
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