Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be among nearly 80 world leaders attending a United Nations summit in New York on Monday to spur action against climate change.

Environmentalists are hoping the leaders will make some progress in breaking the gridlock on efforts to forge a deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol before it expires in 2012.

Oilsands projects, like this Suncor facility in Fort McMurray, Alta., are significant and growing contributors to greenhouse gas production in Canada.
(Jeff McIntosh/Canadian Press)

On Monday morning, Harper is scheduled to address a session on the role of new technologies in cutting emissions.

Under Kyoto, which was signed by Canada in 1998 under a previous Liberal government, the country agreed to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by six per cent from 1990 levels by 2012.

After Conservatives were elected in January 2006, Harper repeatedly said the country's commitments under Kyoto were not achievable by the deadline because they would cripple the economy. Instead, the Conservatives pledged to reduce emissions by 20 per cent from current levels by 2020.

The government's own advisory body, the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy, criticized the Conservatives' plan in a report released Friday. The report said the Conservatives' plan is vague, uses inconsistent accounting measures and exaggerates the extent of the greenhouse-gas cuts it would result in.

A key opening speaker at the United Nations summit will be California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, representing local governments worldwide. He has been pushing aggressive efforts to curb greenhouse-gas emissions that go well beyond what fellow Republican U.S. President George W. Bush supports.

Bush, who has long opposed negotiated limits on the gases blamed for global warming, will not participate in the UN meetings, but plans to attend a small dinner Monday evening, a gathering of key players hosted by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Three days after the UN summit, Bush is holding his own two-day climate change conference in Washington with officials from 16 industrial countries, as well as a few developing countries, including China and India.

Canadian Environment Minister John Baird will attend the Washington meetings on Thursday and Friday.

Earlier in 2007, the UN released a series of authoritative scientific reports that warned the planet will drastically change by 2100, with rising seas and widespread drought, unless countries dramatically reduce carbon dioxide emissions and other heat-trapping gases.

Debate is focused both on pushing industrialized countries for tougher emissions cuts and on creating incentives for reductions in the developing world.

Countries like China have steadfastly refused any binding measures. Meantime, Kyoto set reduction quotes for 36 industrialized countries but many are unlikely to meet their pledges.

With files from the Canadian Press