UN hopes Canada's new leaders will get behind climate deal

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday urged Canada's new leadership to play a strong role to help clinch a historic deal on climate change at the upcoming Paris conference.

Canadian voters put Justin Trudeau's Liberals in office in elections on Monday, ending nine years of conservative rule under Stephen Harper.

Harper pulled Canada out of the landmark Kyoto Protocol on fighting climate change in 2011 because it did not apply to the United States and China, the world's two largest emitters.

"Canada is a member of the Group of Seven and as a result, it has a particular role to play in terms of providing leadership on climate change issues," UN spokesman Farhan Haq said.

"The secretary-general hopes and expects that Canada will play that role, and play in particular a very useful and decisive role in the conference of parties in December" in Paris, he told reporters.

Trudeau's Liberals refused during the campaign to set targets to cut down greenhouse gas emissions, but they have vowed to re-establish Canada's good standing in the fight against climate change.

In May, the Harper government announced Canada would seek to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, after admitting it would miss an earlier, less ambitious goal.

Canada has matched lower US car emissions standards, and banned the construction of new coal-fired power plants.

But it has failed to regulate its biggest source of carbon dioxide emissions -- the oil and gas sector -- which represents one quarter of emissions.