OTTAWA (AFP) — The Liberal Party, Canada's main opposition group, warned the government Thursday against blocking an international deal to combat climate change, due to be negotiated in Copenhagen this December.
Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper of "jeopardizing international climate change efforts leading up to Copenhagen" and hurting Canada's image abroad.
"While climate change threatens us all, the Harper government's stubborn inaction is leading Canada towards painful environmental trade sanctions and a costly loss of international prestige," Ignatieff said.
The Copenhagen summit in December is intended to secure a new international agreement on climate change to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
The opposition appeal came after Canada came last in a new ranking of anti-climate change efforts by G8 countries.
The ranking, compiled by the World Wildlife Fund and financial group Allianz, raised the United States one place to seventh, leaving Canada at the bottom of the list.
The report accuses Canada of failing to adhere to the emission reduction objectives set by Kyoto, and says the country's emissions have continued to rise and remain among the highest in the world per capita.
The Kyoto Protocol requires Canada to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 6 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.
But the conservative Canadian government has said it will not be bound by targets set by the previous government and has published its own plans, which environmentalists say are less ambitious.
The Liberal Party's David McGuinty accused Environment Minister Jim Prentice of having "lost all remaining environmental integrity, having scrapped Canada's third climate change plan in three years."
"Copenhagen demands a real commitment to fighting climate change, and fast," he said.
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