Vive Le Canada - Address by Prime Minister Paul Martin at the UN Conference on Climate Change

Address by Prime Minister Paul Martin at the UN Conference on Climate Change

December 7, 2005
Montreal, Quebec

Mr. Chairman, conference delegates from around the world, ladies and gentlemen:

I want to first extend a welcome, on behalf of Canada and all Canadians, to those of you who have been working so hard here in Montreal these past many days – and to those now joining the conference.

And just let me say that we could not have a more persuasive advocate than our chairman, Stephane Dion, the Canadian minister of the environment. He has traveled to literally dozens of countries, meeting with many of you on more than one occasion, listening to all, seeking consensus, working for progress. I want to tell you, unequivocally, how important it has been to everyone in my government - and to me personally - to not lose sight of our goals here.

In October, I met with a group of Canadians concerned about climate change. They advocated short- and medium-term targets to guide efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They expressed hope that this conference would lead to an inclusive, effective regime by 2008 or 2009. They wanted us to implement mechanisms for emissions trading and clean development.

I’d heard these positions advocated before. But not from people like this. For these were leaders of some of Canada’s largest corporations, including those in the resource and energy sectors. They were encouraging government to adopt an aggressive plan to combat climate change. They had come to understand, they told me, that Canada’s economic and environmental futures were entwined. And, more than that, that our nation had a responsibility to join those at the forefront of the fight against global warming.

Everyone in this room understands that our world is changing. And now attitudes are changing, too. There is a consensus growing. And that consensus presents us with an opportunity – a chance to make a difference here. A chance to make Montreal a name that is synonymous with the moment the world came together, and together set off down the long but vital path to progress, real progress, progress we can measure, progress we can one day celebrate.

The time is past to debate the impact of climate change. We no longer need to ask people to imagine its effects, for now we can see them. You may each have examples from your own part of the world. As climate change takes hold, we will be forced to re-evaluate what we can successfully farm and harvest. Patterns of precipitation – of drought – are shifting; weather events are intensifying. Storms and forest fires, and infestation are already testing our capacity to respond and to recover. As time goes on, these events will worsen. There will be an economic toll. There will be a human toll.

Here in Canada, our Far North has become an incubator for the altered world of tomorrow. High in the Arctic, in our interior and along our coasts, the country we know is being transformed. Winters are growing milder, summers hotter and more severe, there is plant life where before there was none; there is water where before there was ice. Our permafrost is thawing – and releasing methane gas into the atmosphere, accelerating climate change itself. Within short decades, the North-West Passage, the famously un-navigable thoroughfare of history, may be passable – a striking and unsettling example of our delicate balance succumbing to untenable strain.

Some speak of the cost of bringing about change. But surely we realize by now that a greater cost will be exacted if we lack the will or the tenacity to change.

We can talk about this in terms of energy security, in terms of economics. We can talk in terms of ecology or our ethical obligation to others and to ourselves. In each case the facts line up the same way. In each case they point to the same conclusion. We must act, and we must act now.

Traditional fossil fuels have become too costly to waste – too expensive to use indiscriminately; with too great and lasting an impact on the planet. In the face of this challenge we cannot separate the collective from the sovereign interest. We need to accept that with our behaviour, with our actions, we affect one another and the planet we share. We are in this together.

Many in the developing world blame developed nations for having gotten us into this. And who can disagree? Certainly not me. But we are in this together.

There can be no hiding from the fact that the developing world, which is so vulnerable, will suffer most if the effects of climate change set off an even worse decline in local living conditions or a global economic slowdown. These nations do not have the luxury of a margin of error. We are in this together.

The developed world cannot walk away from its responsibilities. I need only look at my own country. We are an energy-producing, energy-consuming nation. Our record on combating climate change was far from perfect in the 1990s.

From the Prime Minister's Web Site (http://www.pm.gc.ca/)

http://www.pm.gc.ca/