Ambrose Blames Liberals at Climate Change Conference

With Rona Ambrose's arrival in Kenya this week, I was going to write a post once she actually showed up there on Monday about the embarassment she and her Clean Air Act supporters have proved to be for Canada - mentioning how she couldn't get away with blaming the Liberals anymore because she was in charge of moving ahead with an aggressive plan - but I decided to wait until she actually spoke at the conference.

Now she's spoken and she has blamed the Liberals, showing how pathetically predictable these Tories are and how they refuse to take responsibility for the fact that they could have moved full steam ahead to deal with climate change instead of being stuck in the blame game which may work at the domestic level but just doesn't fly on the international scene.

In her address to the UN climate change conference in Nairobi on Wednesday, Environment Minister Rona Ambrose blamed the previous Liberal government for leaving behind a mess in Canada.

"A mess that she said required them to take bold measures and have open, honest constructive assessment of the situation," CTV's Murray Oliver told Newsnet from the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.

"Of course, those are code words for realizing that in their opinion the Kyoto targets cannot be met."

Taking her five-minute turn to address delegates from some 180 countries at the UN Climate Conference, Ambrose made no reference to the fact that her government has rejected Canada's emissions-cutting targets under the climate treaty.

Instead, she told the delegates that Canada still had not implemented a domestic plan to address climate change when the Conservatives were elected into office, although the previous government had released a $10-billion plan several months before its defeat.

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Further, Canada may actually have to pay for turning its back on Kyoto:

The minister's address will come as the prime minister of France urges the European Union to impose a punitive import tax on goods from countries such as Canada that are viewed as not fulfilling their obligations to the Kyoto Protocol.

Dominique de Villepin said countries that do not commit to new targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions should not be permitted to benefit by avoiding the costs associated with reducing global warming.

The French delegation in Nairobi told CTV's Murray Oliver that their government will be making an announcement some time in the next couple of days.

"They added that they are very eager to find out what is Canada's position precisely on its Kyoto obligations," Oliver reported, appearing on CTV's Canada AM.

"One of the official members of the French delegation, said that so far, the French government is ... confused about what exactly Canada intends to do about its responsibilities to Kyoto."

It's time for the blame game to end. The Europeans are long past bickering about who did or didn't do what in the past in Canada when it comes to Kyoto and no matter how hard the Tories bluster and complain, they can't change the past and should not be trying to rewrite it by ignoring the fact that the Liberals in the end did have a concrete plan. Ambrose ought to step up and take full responsibility for her new agenda and if the international community thinks that it falls short, she ought to listen and adjust instead of trying to hide behind what previous governments failed to do.