Gro Harlem Brundtland, former prime minister of Norway, was keynote speaker on Monday at the International Polar Year conference in Montreal. Dr. Brundtland has headed the World Health Organization and served as a UN climate change envoy.

In her speech, she said warming temperatures have dramatically affected the globe’s polar regions. The Arctic Ocean ice has shrunk and will likely disappear within 30 to 40 years, permafrost is thawing, and Antarctica is losing ice and witnessing above-average warming in the Southern Ocean. The Polar Regions are now being drawn into the rest of the world at a much accelerated pace.”

Dr. Brundtland told delegates that despite the weaknesses of the Kyoto Protocol, the world can’t afford to push it aside without an alternative, as global emissions steadily increase.

Canada has been moving backwards on the Kyoto Protocol, if you look at it historically. The U.S. and Canada both need to be committed to do their role. That doesn’t mean that China and India and everybody else also don’t have to step up, but we shouldn’t step back from our commitment – we should add the others.

I’m still expecting the U.S. and Canada to be part of a future solution to a future broad agreement. I believe this is the reality of the world, that we all have to contribute. We need to work with all countries across the world and not take away the Kyoto Protocol before we find an alternative that is workable.

The scientific basis for climate change has come under attack in Canada. Alberta’s Wildrose Party believes the link between human activity and global warming is inconclusive.

That is anti-scientific and naive. Politicians and others that question the science, that’s not the right thing to do. We have to base ourselves on evidence.

It is important not to be influenced by, and inspired by, laissez-faire attitudes, which first had an impact before the U.S. financial crisis and the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. When you liberalize regulations, and you leave it more to companies, whether banks or oil companies, I don’t think this is the right way to go. You have to have governance. You must have serious and strict regulations.

Norway is an oil-and-gas producing nation with a strong environmental policy. We have the petroleum fund. We call it the Pension Fund; it’s there so that the financial benefits from the development and extraction of oil and gas are not used only by our generations, but saves it for future generations.