News Release

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

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PRIME MINISTER HARPER URGES APEC TO SEEK A NEW CONSENSUS ON CLIMATE CHANGE BASED ON CANADA'S BALANCED APPROACH

September 7, 2007
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

In a keynote address at the APEC Australia 2007 Business Summit today, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told more than 200 business and political leaders from 21 Asia-Pacific countries that Canada's balanced approach to reversing global warming is a model for the next international protocol on climate change.

"The growing menace of climate change is one of the most important public policy challenges of our time," Prime Minister Harper said. "For at least a decade most Governments, including Canada's Government, paid lip service to the issue because they were unwilling to tell the public that reducing carbon emissions will have real economic costs. We need to take action. We owe it to future generations, just as we owe them a strong and secure economic future."

The key to a practical, realistic and effective global action plan on climate change, Prime Minister Harper said, is striking a balance between sustainable economic growth and careful environmental stewardship. The new Canadian strategy involves regulating emissions for the first time while also investing in new clean energy technologies and establishing a carbon emissions trading market that will give business the incentive to run cleaner, greener operations.

"Canada wants to be a world leader in the fight against climate change and in the development of clean energy," said the Prime Minister. "I hope that this Summit will help lay the groundwork for a new post-2012 international protocol, a fair and flexible new regime that will accommodate all countries and lead to real, effective action against global warming."

Prime Minister Harper will spend the next two days in meetings with APEC leaders before heading on to the Australian capital of Canberra, where he will become the first Canadian Prime Minister in history to address the Australian Parliament.

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The Prime Minister's Office - Communications
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