Backgrounder
The Kyoto Protocol entered into force on
16 February 2005
The Eleventh Session of the Conference of Parties (CoP 11): What is it?
The Secretariat for United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Government of Canada have confirmed that Canada will host the Eleventh Conference of the Parties (CoP 11) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the first Meeting of the Parties (MoP 1) to the Kyoto Protocol which will be held in early December 2005.
The CoP11/MoP 1 meeting will be held at the Palais de Congrès in Montréal, Québec. The meetings are expected to attract more than 10,000 participants from the Convention's 189 Parties as well as from non-governmental organizations, intergovernmental organizations and the world's media.
For Canada, the meetings have a number of important implications. Canada's international reputation is such that it is viewed as a respected and neutral broker that has helped ensure successful negotiations on a number of complex environmental agreements, such as the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer and the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants . Hosting CoP11/MoP 1 will help ensure that Canada continues to have a role of pride and influence in the world.
The meetings will be important both for the international climate change community and for Canada. Consideration of the successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, which sets binding targets for parties through to 2012, is scheduled to begin at CoP 11/MoP 1. This meeting will be instrumental in framing future global action on climate change. It is important that the long term approach to tackling climate change provides Canada and other countries with a framework of achievable, longer-term goals consistent with the scientific consensus on the need for significant emission reductions.
Canada is well positioned to help build the optimal next generation international agreement. We are a member of the G-8, we have close ties with the United States and we are respected in the developing world.
Hosting CoP 11/MoP 1 will help assure Canada a prominent role in international climate change negotiations. This may help Canada to express its view that the new framework agreement, in addition to achieving stronger reductions in emissions, must also promote prosperous 21 st century economies that are innovative and sustainable for both developed and developing countries.
To be successful, Canada believes the post-Kyoto agreement must be inclusive and set the framework for the long term. The agreement must meet key objectives: it should have broader participation with fair goals, including all industrialized and key emerging economies; it should generate outcomes that will result in real progress over the longer term; it should provide incentives to invest in developing and sharing transformative environmental technologies to reduce emissions at home and abroad; it should maximize the deployment of existing clean technologies; it should support a streamlined and efficient global carbon market; and it should address adaptation as well as mitigation.
Achieving our climate change goals provides an opportunity to transform our economy, making our industrial sectors the cleanest in the world, making our consumers the most energy efficient and ensuring the long-term sustainability of the Canadian economy.
This event will mark a continuation of Montréal as a centre of international environmental action. Montréal is the home to the United Nations Biodiversity Secretariat. As well, the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was adopted on September 16 1987 at the Headquarters of the International Civil Aviation Organization in Montréal.
- News Release: Canada to Host Next Major International Meeting Setting Global Course on Climate Change Beyond Kyoto
- Speech: Address by Prime Minister Paul Martin on the announcement that Canada will host the Conference of the Parties (CoP 11). Text and audio available
- Speaking Notes: The Honourable David L. Emerson, Minister of Industry – Announcement of Canada Hosting an International Climate Change Meeting
- What is the Kyoto Protocol?
- United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
- What is Climate Change?
