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As to the reality of climate change

The former foreign affairs minister makes the case for skepticism.

Asked, via e-mail, whether the Prime Minister believes in “anthropogenic (or man-made) global warming,” the Prime Minister’s Office passes along the following transcript of an exchange from Mr. Harper’s closing press conference in Copenhagen late last year.

Reporter: Prime Minister your party in the past has talked about… questioned the science of climate change and there was renewed talk of that this week. President Obama gave a really strong statement in favor of the science of climate change. Where do you stand on that now?

Harper: Well we’ve been very clear. The preponderance of scientific evidence and opinion is that climate change is a very real challenge. The science continues to evolve. As you know, we’ve had some controversy recently because the science is not uniform, not every scientist agrees on every detail. But we are guided by the preponderance of the evidence. And that is absolutely clear. But ultimately leaders have to translate the necessity of dealing with the challenge in the science of climate change with the very real impacts that trying to deal with it will have on our economy. And we should not try and kid people on this. I know people… there’ll be people running out there saying targets are not hard enough. But let me assure you what we and others are committed to do over the next decade will have real impacts and real challenges on players and the Canadian economy, but we’ll obviously work with them to ensure that we balance these objectives of environmental protection and progress with economic growth.

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