Lawsuit filed against government for breach of Kyoto agreements

The rest of the article is at the CBC website. I wonder if the suit is accepted and the Friends of the Earth win what the court will require!


Group plans lawsuit against Tories over Kyoto
Last Updated: Tuesday, May 29, 2007 | 3:43 PM ET
CBC News
John Baird defended his handling of the environment portfolio Tuesday as a leading environmental group filed a lawsuit aimed at forcing the Conservative government to live up to its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.

Facing an at-times hostile parliamentary environment committee on Tuesday, Baird said the Tories' plan was an "ambitious policy package" that balanced Canadians' demands for action on climate change with the need to safeguard the country's economy.

"No one else is doing as much as we are," Baird said of the Tories' Turning the Corner plan, which sees Canada reaching its Kyoto emissions targets between 2020 and 2025, instead of 2012, the year laid out in the international plan to curb climate change.

Friends of the Earth launched the court challenge Tuesday, alleging Canada will likely be in "flagrant breach" of its international obligations under the climate-change treaty.

"You can't just do whatever you want," said Christine Elwell, a spokeswoman for the group. "You have laws. You have obligations."

Rob Wright, a lawyer for the Sierra Legal Defence Fund, said the group does not want the court to impose a climate-change plan on the federal government.

"We're not asking the court to tell the government precisely how to deal with climate change and greenhouse gases," he told reporters Tuesday in Ottawa.

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