Environment Minister Rona Ambrose has had the unenviable job in recent weeks of explaining the Conservative government's climate change policy to Canadians and the world.

But despite her 'best efforts,' she seemed to further cloud the issue on CTV's Question Period.

"We're on track to meet all of our obligations under the Kyoto protocol but not the target," she told host Jane Taber on Sunday before flying to Nairobi, Kenya for the UN climate change conference.

When asked what he thought Ambrose meant, Dale Marshall, climate change campaigner for the David Suzuki Foundation, burst out laughing.

"I have no idea," he told CTV.ca.

There are various reports that the government of Canada and other signatories to the protocol must submit. However, the target is everything, Marshall explained.

When Canada , then governed by the Liberals, signed on to the Kyoto Protocol in December 1997, it agreed to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by six per cent below 1990 levels by 2012 (the average target agreed to was a cut of 5.2 per cent). As of 2004, Canada is 27 per cent above that benchmark.

"I think right now we need to get our own house in order and we need to clean up our own backyard," Ambrose told reporters at a brief news scrum in Nairobi on Tuesday. "We need to get our targets in place domestically so we can show the international community that we've made good progress."

And that set the stage for what many saw as a partisan speech before the nearly 5,000 delegates from 189 countries.

Filling in the gaps

"When Canada's new government assumed office this year, we found an unacceptable situation. We found that measures to address climate change by previous Canadian governments were insufficient and unaccountable," Ambrose said.

"Years after signing and ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, Canada still had not implemented a domestic plan to address climate change. And the result is that Canada is 35 per cent above our Kyoto target."

One-hundred-sixty-three countries, including Canada in 2002, have ratified the Kyoto treaty, which came into effect Feb. 16, 2005. The Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative Parties, the forerunners to the current Conservative Party, both voted against its ratification. The U.S. refused to ratify it, despite the fact it accounts for one-quarter of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. Neither did Australia.

In April 2005, the federal Liberal government unveiled Project Green, a $10-billion, eight-year commitment.

John Godfrey, a Toronto Liberal MP and his party's environment critic, reacted angrily after the speech to the 'no plan' claim.

"We would have had -- had they not messed it up -- things actually happening by 2008," he said. "We had the EnerGuide program which had already retrofitted 70,000 houses; we had doubled the amount of wind power production in 2005."

Marshall said criticism of the Liberal government's record is entirely fair, noting the Grits committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions in its 1993 Red Book of election promises, yet didn't present a plan until 2005. The Globe and Mail had an editorial that accused Godfrey of having a selective memory.

Ambrose touted her government's legislation: The Clean Air Act. However, she didn't mention that none of the opposition parties supported it or that it was undergoing a significant re-write.

She noted the plan offers mandatory reduction targets and seeks to reduce absolute emissions by 65 per cent by the year 2050.

However, NDP MP and environment critic Nathan Cullen noted on Newsnet's Mike Duffy Live on Wednesday that the Tories are using 2003 as a benchmark when the rest of the world is using 1990.

"They set out a Green Plan that essentially calls for three more years of consultation and that sets no hard targets until 2050, so they aren't trying to do anything any time soon," Marshall said.

The minister did try to show evidence of movement on targets: "... Our plan also recognizes the need for urgent action so that we can finally make progress towards our 2012 international obligations. Early in the New Year, Canada will finally have short term targets and timelines for all major industry sectors."

While the Tories' Clean Air Act makes no reference to Kyoto, Ambrose said: "Canada remains strongly committed to the UN process. Canada remains strongly committed to Kyoto -- driven by a principled obligation for collaboration and action.

"There are some who fear that by admitting certain things are not working we are in effect abandoning Kyoto. On the contrary, I would challenge each of us to recognize that we are abandoning our protocol obligations if we do not acknowledge that we must make improvements."

That seems to be at odds with the Conservatives' 2006 election platform which stated: "For all the Liberal talk about the environment, they have done nothing to clean up the environment here in Canada. They sign ambitious international treaties and send money to foreign governments for hot air credits, but can't seem to get anything done to help people here at home."

The Tories promised to: "Address the issue of greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), with a made-in-Canada plan, emphasizing new technologies, developed in concert with the provinces and in coordination with other major industrial countries."

The platform didn't explicitly mention support for Kyoto, and the "ambitious international treaties" reference doesn't appear to be an endorsement.

The "co-ordination with other major industrial countries" could mean the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, which environmentalists deride as a cover group for some of the world's biggest coal producers.

A Liberal MP has introduced a private member's bill calling on Canada to meet its Kyoto obligations. The Conservatives have voted against it in first and second reading.

"They've shown their displeasure towards Kyoto for a long time now, going way back before they formed the government," Marshall said of the Tories.

"So how do you resolve the fact they don't want to be part of the Kyoto Protocol but Canadians overwhelmingly support it? Well, you do what they do: You essentially say, 'we're not going to do the Kyoto Protocol' while you continue to tell Canadians you are going to do the Kyoto Protocol."

Why Canada got hammered

For the Kyoto treaty to succeed in slowing the damage caused by climate change, every country must live up to its commitments.

"Were Canada to become the first country not to fulfill its commitments under Kyoto, it would certainly be a first building block that falls out of the wall of building a global climate coalition," UN Environment Program Executive Director Achim Steiner said Tuesday.

As such, the environmentalists lobbying at the conference have put particular pressure on Canada.

"We're moving away from the international community and we're joining other environmental rogue states like the U.S., like Australia, who've decided this is someone else's problem," said Greenpeace Canada campaigner Steven Guilbeault on Wednesday.

Polls from various sources indicate Canadians consider global warming to be among the top issues facing the country, along with health care and Afghanistan.

A Strategic Counsel poll for CTV in October found that Canadians would support measures like an energy tax and fines for energy-intensive industries that don't cut their greenhouse gas emissions.

"I think the problem for (the Tories) is the political one: How do you resolve the fact that you're opposed to something that the majority of Canadians, including people who vote for your party, are in support of?" Marshall said.

"We know in talking to Canadians that they are fully behind any government that gets serious about climate change," Cullen said.