Canada’s Prime Minister Paul Martin addresses the UN Climate Change Conference

Prime Minister Paul Martin urged delegates at the UN Climate Change Conference in Montreal to meet the challenges – and opportunities – of global climate change. 

The Prime Minister made his remarks at the opening of the High-Level Session of the Conference, which runs from Wednesday until Friday.  Nearly 10,000 people were on hand to hear him speak, including a record number of non-governmental organizations and observers, according to Richard Kinley, the Officer-in-Charge of the UN Secretariat. 

Highlights of the Prime Minister’s messages are presented below: 

• 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 see them.  Here in Canada, our Far North has become an incubator for the altered world of tomorrow…. Our permafrost is thawing – and releasing methane gas into the atmosphere, accelerating climate change itself.”
  
  
• We must act, and we must act now:  “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.” 
  
  
• Strong action under the Kyoto Protocol now and in the future is essential:  “We must give ourselves the tools to ensure that signatory countries comply with the Protocol.  And we must plan for the future.  Considering future commitments under the Protocol will send a clear signal that the world is addressing climate change over the long term.” 
  
  
• Long-term concerted action and leadership is essential:  “The time is past to seek comfort in denial.  The time is past to pretend that any nation can stand alone, isolated from the global community – for there is but one Earth, and we share it, and there can be no hiding on any island, in any city, within any country, no matter how prosperous, from the consequences of inaction.” 
  
  
• Montreal presents an opportunity for consensus:  “Our world is changing … attitudes are changing too.  There is a consensus growing… that consensus presents us with 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.”