COPENHAGEN -- The UN climate chief says Canada is leaving a difficult past behind and is a constructive negotiator in the current process to find a new global climate change pact.

When asked whether Canada has been hindering an agreement, as domestic and international critics have charged, Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC), said no.

“Canada has been negotiating very constructively in this process,” Mr. de Boer said Wednesday.

“Canada has a tough period behind it in terms that Canada did rise and ratify the Kyoto Protocol, but its main trading partner the United States, did not, which left it in a very unbalanced situation.”

But Mr. de Boer added he hopes the global talks result in a “strong and ambitious Canadian target.”

Although Canada said it would abide by the terms of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, its greenhouse gas emissions actually increased by about 26% between 1990 and 2007.

Going forward, the country’s climate change target -- a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2006 levels by 2020 -- is nearly identical to that of the U.S.

Canada has now been the target of an international campaign by environmental groups who say the country has done little to halt its rising emissions and its future targets are too weak.

Just a few days into the Copenhagen meetings, it appears that some provinces will go to great lengths to distinguish their climate change policies from those of Ottawa.

In a roomful of international media Wednesday morning, a senior staff member from B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell’s office handed out a polished package highlighting British Columbia’s commitment to reduce emissions by 33% by 2020, with a tag line that the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in 2010 will be the “greenest ever and carbon neutral.”

Mr. Campbell is pictured shaking hands with former U.S. president Bill Clinton, who has praised B.C.’s implementation of a carbon tax.

A news release quotes Mr. Campbell saying that he will be in Copenhagen next week to support the federal government and also to “represent British Columbia as a sub-national jurisdiction that is taking significant steps towards addressing climate change.”

In B.C., Mr. Campbell said it’s important for provincial leaders to be at the Copenhagen conference.

“We can give national leaders a sense of confidence that this [commitments on reducing climate change] can be accomplished and that they’ve got willing partners who are trying to accomplish these things,” he said this week.

“One of the lessons from Kyoto is you don’t get very far in Canada if you don’t include the provinces,” he said.

“The Kyoto Protocol was done without any provincial input, there was no discussion about it.”

Federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice invited all premiers to the conference in Copenhagen this year, the premier said.

Mr. Campbell, who will be speaking at multiple conference events, will be in Copenhagen from Dec. 14-16. Other premiers, such as Quebec’s Jean Charest, Manitoba’s Greg Selinger, Nova Scotia’s Darrell Dexter, and Nunavut’s Eva Aariak, will also be travelling to Copenhagen.

With both Prentice and Prime Minister Stephen Harper hailing from Calgary, critics have said Canada’s greenhouse gas reduction targets are being managed by the Conservative government to protect the continued growth of Alberta’s oilsands.

The oilsands now make up about five% of Canada’s total emissions, but Environment Canada predicts oilsands emissions will be the largest contributor to Canada’s emissions growth in the near future, and could triple by 2020.

Canadian negotiators note that environmental critics do not consider Canada’s special circumstances — including the country’s rapid population growth in the last two decades.

The meetings in Copenhagen this week and next are part of a United Nations process to find an agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol from 2012 onwards.

The early days of the conference are focused on a number of detailed, technical discussions before environment ministers and world leaders begin arriving this weekend and early next week.

Calgary Herald with files from Jonathan Fowlie