Canada declines to enter G8 climate change fight

OTTAWA, May 29 (Reuters) Canada declined to take sides in a dispute among Group of Eight members over climate change, saying merely it wanted to build consensus on the question of how to fight global warming.

Germany, which hosts a meeting of G8 leaders next week, wants the group to agree on a series of fixed targets and timetables for cutting emissions. The United States disagrees and wants such language excised from the final communique.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper -- who says Canada cannot meet targets for emissions cuts set out by the Kyoto climate change protocol -- did not answer when pressed several times by opposition politicians as to whose side he would take at the G8 summit.

''In order to have a post-2012 effective international protocol, we need to have all major emitters, including the United States and China, as part of that effort. Canada will be working to try to create that consensus,'' he told Parliament.

Kyoto committed Canada to cutting emissions by 6 per cent of 1990 levels by 2012, when the first stage of the international treaty runs out. Canadian emissions are now 32 per cent above that target.

Washington walked away from Kyoto in 2001 on the grounds that it would hurt the US economy and unfairly excluded such heavy emitters as China.

Leaders of all three Canadian opposition parties said they suspected Harper would back US President George W Bush at the summit.

''I have a lot of concerns that the government will be siding with the Bush administration instead of supporting the German presidency to be sure that (the) G8 will help humanity to fight climate change,'' said Stephane Dion, who heads the Liberals.

REUTERS CS SBA BST0445