Wednesday-Night

October 25, 2007

An international conference on long-term strategies to combat climate change got under way last night at the Palais des congrès, bringing together 400 business leaders, scientists and politicians from 13 countries.
The two-day conference, called Climate 2050, Technology and Policy Solutions, will focus on the formidable challenge of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by 60 to 80 per cent in the next half-century.
The conference is hosted by three influential environmental institutions from three countries: Canada’s National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, the United States’ Pew Centre on Global Climate Change and France’s Veolia Environment Institute.
Former Quebec premier Pierre Marc Johnson played a key role in bringing this conference to Montreal in his role as a board member of the Veolia Environment Institute.
The Paris-based think tank was created in 2001. Its mission is to promote environmental research in universities and hold a series of international conferences.
In an interview with The Gazette yesterday, Johnson stressed the conference will not be about rehashing political conflicts over the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.
“This is not about Kyoto or no Kyoto. We are talking about major changes in terms of emissions rates over the long term,” he said.
“These are major actors who prepared this conference … in terms of resources and networking.”
Speakers at last night’s opening ceremonies included Premier Jean Charest, Nobel Prize nominee Sheila Watt-Cloutier, and Hydro-Quebec president Thierry Vandal.
On the agenda for the conference itself are such topics as biofuels, transportation efficiency, forest management, nuclear energy and wise city planning.
What makes this conference different from other international conferences on the same topic, Johnson said, is its long-term outlook and the influence of its three host organizations.
“This is not a conference about international politics,” he said.
“We are starting with the assumption that climate change is here to stay, that it will have significant consequences on the everyday lives of people around the world, and so we need to ask what can technology and business do about it and what kind of policies can be implemented” to minimize the negative impacts of climate change.
mlalonde@thegazette.canwest.com———

© The Gazette (Montreal) 2007