"I believe, because of our common interests, that Canada and Australia can work together in the area of climate change," Howard said in an address to Canada's parliament.

Australia did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, an international accord to reduce greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said repeatedly it would be "impossible" for his country to meet its emissions reduction targets agreed to under the pact.

Canada's emissions are now 35 percent above its 1990 base levels. Its protocol target is six percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

Greenpeace had expressed fears the two leaders might use the Australian prime minister's visit to promote the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (APP) as an alternative to the Kyoto Protocol.

"The Asia-Pacific Partnership is a fraud. It's a non-binding pact for some of the world's largest coal producers who want to quietly keep up their polluting ways," said Steven Guilbeault of Greenpeace, currently an observer at the climate change negotiations in Bonn, Germany.

Canadian Environment Minister Rona Ambrose, who is hostile to the Kyoto Protocol, has hinted that Canada may opt to join the APP. Australia is already a key member, along with the United States, Japan, Indonesia, China and South Korea.

But environmentalists lament the APP relies only on voluntary measures and contains no targets, timetables or financial mechanisms to reduce greenhouse gas pollution.

Howard noted Australia will reach the targets set for it under Kyoto, despite its objections to the accord.

However, global warming will not cease "unless there is a full involvement of the major polluting nations of the world -- the United States, China and India," he said.

His comments echoed Ambrose this week at the Bonn talks where environmentalists took aim at her lacklustre defense of the Kyoto Protocol.

Howard's two-day official visit to Ottawa, which will include talks with Harper and business leaders, wraps up a trip that started in Washington on Monday.

Carolyn Stewart-Olsen, Harper's press secretary, said the two leaders, who became friends last year after meeting at a conference in Washington, will likely discuss security and trade.

"I expect they'll talk about areas of mutual interest such as Afghanistan," she said. "But there's no fixed agenda."

Meanwhile, Canada's two largest unions, the Public Service Alliance of Canada and the Canadian Auto Workers, protested Howard's arrival over deep cuts to Australia's public service.

"It is an insult to the labour movement in Canada for him to be invited here to speak," Hemi Mitic, spokesman for CAW president Buzz Hargrove, told the Ottawa Sun.

Howard is the first Australian prime minister to address Canada's parliament since 1944.

In his speech, he also pressed Harper to work with him on energy security and measures to stop nuclear proliferation -- the two nations hold the world's largest uranium reserves.

He paid tribute to Canada's "enormous contribution" to help stabilize and rebuild Afghanistan and expressed sadness over the recent deaths of Canadian soldiers in the war-torn country.

"Terrorism will only be defeated by a combination of strong intelligence, military action where appropriate, and importantly the spread of democracy, particularly amongst Islamic countries," Howard noted.

He also praised Indonesia for undergoing a "remarkable transition" in eight years from a military dictatorship to the third-largest democracy in the world and gave a nod to the people of Iraq in their fight for democracy.

Related Links