Thank you.
Climate change is a global issue. It's a global issue, as Andrew Weaver said, because the CO2 that we emit stays in the atmosphere for a long time. It is well-mixed, and it doesn't matter where it comes from.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, when it was finalized in 1995, recognized that. The wording of the convention talks about common but differentiated responsibilities, and these depend on a country's per capita emission. China's emissions as a total are the same as those of the U.S., but the per capita emissions are far less. In other words, China per capita still has lesser emissions than the U.S.
A notion of common and differentiated responsibilities also looks at questions of wealth. There are some countries that, through technological wealth, economic wealth, human wealth, or whatever, actually have the ability to reduce the emissions more than others. You talked about some countries that, like India, are still in poverty.
The third reason, and there are probably more, happens to do with history: that it is we in the industrialized world who are responsible for most of the emissions in the atmosphere at the moment, and therefore it is we in the industrialized world who are responsible for many of the impacts we are already seeing and are going to see in the future.
Yes, we do need to have everybody on board, but we have to understand that different countries have different abilities to contribute. I think that what the developing world is looking for is for us in the developed world, the industrialized world, to show an example—to lead—and that means Canada. I think it's in all of our interests to make sure that the development paths of these developing countries don't necessarily repeat our development paths; that we somehow provide them with the technologies, the wisdom, and the know-how.
The bottom line, as far as I am concerned, is that, true as all those arguments may be—and I think you posed a very important question—we have to start, and we have to start now. If we continue to prevaricate and say “No, after you, Alphonse”, etc., we'll never get the action that we absolutely need.