OTTAWA - Environment Minister Jim Prentice appears to be contradicting his top climate-change envoy, denying that some countries walked out of recent talks in Thailand because of Canada's position.
Prentice insisted Wednesday that no one left the room when Canada proposed replacing the Kyoto Protocol with an entirely new global-warming pact - a view shared by the United States, the European Union and Australia.
But the environment minister's version of events appears at odds with that of Canada's climate-change negotiator, Michael Martin, who acknowledged Tuesday that a handful of countries did walk out.
"It certainly wasn't the whole G77," Martin said. "I think there were some countries - South Africa, China, I can't remember, there were about five or six - who said, 'We don't want to talk about this' and they left."
The walkout came at the end of an informal meeting held one evening, Martin said.
A spokesman for Prentice later insisted people came and went during "a discussion by 60 people."
The differing responses came after The Canadian Press ran a story quoting South African negotiator Joanne Yawitch as saying that her country led some of the Group of 77 developing nations out of the room after Canadian officials spoke.
The talks in Bangkok - where delegates from 180 nations met to shape a successor to Kyoto before its first phase expires in just over two years - exposed a widening and bitter rift between rich and developing countries over climate change.
The United Nations hopes to broker a draft deal in time for a major climate-change conference in Copenhagen in December.
Prominent environmental scientist and author Tim Flannery accused Canada on Wednesday of being a laggard in talks to forge a new deal to fight climate change.
The best-selling author of The Weather Makers said Canada has been "singularly unhelpful" at negotiations to broker a draft deal in time for the Copenhagen.
At the Bangkok meeting, the delegates discussed whether all or parts of Kyoto should end up in the new agreement, according to notes taken by a delegate from a developing nation and the South African negotiator.
Rich industrial nations such as Canada, the United States and the countries of the European Union want a new climate deal to replace Kyoto, to which the U.S. is not a party. They are open to keeping some or all of Kyoto in a new agreement.
Developing countries want any new deal to complement Kyoto. They also oppose any legal agreement that would force them to lower their emissions.
Canada's delegation was apparently open to putting "some or all" of Kyoto in a new climate pact, the notes say.
But the developing nations were perturbed that Canada and other industrial countries would consider copying parts Kyoto into a new treaty.
"You can't do a cut and paste on a ratified treaty," Yawitch said.
The Kyoto Protocol binds 37 industrial countries, including Canada, to reduce greenhouse gases by 5.2 per cent from 1990 levels by 2012.
Canada, the U.S., the Europeans, the Australians and others want a new agreement to also bind big developing nations such as China and India to cut greenhouse gases.
The industrial countries argue the battle to cut greenhouse gases is for naught unless all major polluters curb their emissions - a point underscored Wednesday by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
"Of course there is resistance in some emerging countries, but the reality is we cannot control greenhouse-gas emissions if we do not control the emissions of the large emitters," Harper said.
"And that will remain our position in international negotiations ... If we're only controlling a third of the emissions, it won't work."
But developing countries argue that binding targets would stunt their fledgling economies. They also oppose having similar targets to industrialized nations, which they say are responsible for most of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The developing countries want rich nations to pony up billions of dollars to pay for measures to adapt to the effects of global warming and lower their carbon emissions.
