2.4°C Not observed 
OTTAWA - Canada's environment ministers appear to be headed for a global climate-change summit in Copenhagen next month with very different messages.
Disappointed with the federal government's refusal to step up its efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, Ontario and Quebec plan to talk up their ambitious plans to fight climate change at the summit, Ontario Environment John Gerretsen said late Wednesday.
"We're not out to embarrass the federal government at an international setting," he said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
"But on the other hand, we also want to join with other, like-minded subnationals that, in effect, have been more pro-active in the whole climate change agenda over the last couple of years."
The closed-door meeting late Wednesday between Environment Minister Jim Prentice and his provincial and territorial counterparts was "productive," Gerretsen said.
The ministers didn't discuss any specific measures that the federal government is taking to bring in a national cap-and-trade system or when it might be implemented, he said. But Prentice did give the impression that very little legislative work needed to be done to make it happen.
Some provinces were disappointed that he wouldn't commit to more "ambitious" reduction targets, Gerretsen said.
"He applauded both what's been happening in Quebec and in British Columbia and in Saskatchewan and Ontario for setting an example," he said.
"And I suppose it begs the question, well what has the federal government in effect been doing for those issues that are within its jurisdiction? We're disappointed with the target they've set for Canada as a whole."
Ontario has already warned the federal Conservatives that their plan to put a price on carbon had better not "discriminate" against the country's most populous province.
One of Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty's key demands is that Ontario gets to keep any gains generated in the province from a national cap-and-trade plan.
Meanwhile, Quebec Premier Jean Charest has urged the federal government to step up its efforts to reduce greenhouse gases.
Quebec, which derives much of its power from less-polluting hydro-electricity, announced plans to lower its emissions by at least 20 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020.
Quebec's goal - which matches a target advocated by the Europeans - is more stringent than the Harper government's goal of lowering greenhouse gases three per cent below 1990 levels by 2020
U.S. President Barack Obama, in a bid to salvage talks that few now expect to produce a global greenhouse-gas pact, announced Wednesday he will go to Copenhagen on Dec. 9.
"Based on the president's work on climate change over the past 10 months . . . and based on progress made in recent, constructive discussions with China and India's Leaders, the president believes it is possible to reach a meaningful agreement in Copenhagen," a statement from the White House said.
Obama will miss the Dec. 17-18 gathering of other world leaders, timed to coincide with the final hours of what are expected to be difficult negotiations in Copenhagen.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper will not attend the climate-change talks unless a world leaders' meeting is scheduled, a spokesman said.
"If there is a leaders' meeting with all major leaders, then the prime minister would attend," Dimitri Soudas said.
It was hoped the Copenhagen summit would yield a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, a global greenhouse-gas treaty ratified by dozens of countries, including Canada but not the United States.
But leaders at the recent Asia-Pacific summit in Singapore acknowledged there will be no final deal in Copenhagen, and talks are expected to continue well into next year.
That buys Canada more time to cobble together a plan to cut greenhouse gases.
Prentice recently said Canada will wait to regulate its greenhouse gases until the rest of the world reaches a climate-change deal and the United States decides how it will tackle emissions.
-With files from Maria Babbage in Toronto
