OTTAWA—Prime Minister Stephen Harper praised Tony Abbott, Australia’s prime minister, for Abbott’s efforts to discourage countries around the world from trying to fight climate change with carbon taxes.

Harper, who met with Abbott Monday on Parliament Hill, said both leaders agreed that addressing global warming should only be undertaken in ways that don’t slow economic growth.

“We seek to deal with (climate change) in a way that will protect and enhance our ability to create jobs and growth — not destroy jobs and growth in our countries,” Harper said at a joint press conference.

Harper also said, based on his government’s consultations, new legislation that would make it illegal to buy sex is supported by a majority of Canadians. “We will continue to clearly criminalize the activities of pimps and johns,” he told the media.

The new anti-prostitution bill was a response to a decision by the Supreme Court of Canada, which threw out existing laws on the grounds that they created undo dangers for sex-trade workers. The Conservatives hope to dry up the sex-for-sale business by going after prostitutes’ customers or others who make money from the sale of sexual services. But critics say the new legislation fails to address the Supreme Court decision and will increase dangers to sex-trade workers by driving the business further underground.

Harper, however, maintains the important issue is to get people out of prostitution by targeting those who use it or profit from it. “The activities around prostitution are illegal because they are bad and harmful for women and for society more broadly,” he said.

Harper, speaking of positions that Abbott has taken as this year’s chair of the G20 group of nations, commended his Australian counterpart for encouraging other countries “to boost economic growth, to lower taxes when possible and to eliminate harmful ones, most notably the job-killing carbon tax.”

The federal Conservatives once advocated a North America-wide cap-and-trade emissions control system similar to a carbon tax, but they have abandoned that proposal.

Abbott is planning to scrap Australia’s carbon tax and hopes to align Australia with energy-producing countries that together will provide a global diplomatic counterweight to U.S. President Barack Obama’s increasing push to combat global warming. Abbott will be visiting Obama at the White House this week.

All countries should do what they can to tackle climate change “but we shouldn’t clobber the economy,” Abbott told reporters.

Harper echoed this theme, saying no country will take action on climate change that will hurt its economy.

“We are just a little more frank about that, but that is the approach that every country is seeking,” Harper remarked.

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