Canada drops Kyoto sooner than expected

By Levon Sevunts Dec 13, 2011, 20:48 GMT

Montreal - Canada withdrew from the Kyoto treaty Monday, making it the first country to officially abandon the international environmental agreement even before it expires in 2012.

'As we've said, Kyoto for Canada is in the past ... We are invoking our legal right to formally withdraw from Kyoto,' Environment Minister Peter Kent told reporters in Ottawa.

Kent's announcement comes a day after marathon climate talks wrapped up in the South African port city of Durban.

Reports in the Canadian media ahead of the Durban summit had indicated that the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper was planning to announce a formal withdrawal from the Kyoto treaty on December 23.

'The Kyoto Protocol does not cover the world's largest two emitters, United States and China, and therefore cannot work,' Kent said. 'It's now clear that Kyoto is not the path forward to a global solution to climate change. If anything it's an impediment.'

Canada's withdrawal from the treaty adds another blow to the already weakened Kyoto Protocol, which expires in December 2012. Canada, along with Russia and Japan, had already signalled last year they would not sign up for an extension.

Experts said that by withdrawing before year's end, Canada will avoid paying penalties for not meeting its binding pledges for greenhouse gas reductions.

Canada signed on to the Kyoto accords in 1998 under former prime minister Jean Chretien. But successive governments have not taken action to meet the targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Kent blasted the preceding Liberal governments for failing to implement the Kyoto accords. The inaction of previous governments made attaining the Kyoto targets unrealistic, Kent said.

'To meet the targets for 2012 would be the equivalent of either removing every car, truck, ATV (all terrain vehicle), tractor, ambulance, police car and vehicle of every kind from Canadian roads,' Kent said, 'or closing down the entire farming and agricultural sector, and cutting heat to every home, office, hospital, factory and building in Canada.'

Canadian opposition parties responded immediately, accusing Kent of fear mongering.

'The minister painted our climate change obligations as this boogeyman that's going to get us,' Megan Leslie, member of parliament for the left-of-center New Democratic Party, told CBC TV. 'I couldn't believe the approach he took, saying you know, 'we're not going to heat our homes and every single household is going to somehow fork over money to some international countries... It was unbelievable to me.'

Canada faced international criticism at the recent climate talks in South Africa amid reports it would pull out of Kyoto. But Kent said Canada went to Durban 'in a spirit of good will.'

'We went committed to being constructive,' Kent said. 'We went looking to reach an international climate change agreement that includes all major emitters.'

Kent insisted that Canada is making 'great progress' toward reducing carbon dioxide by 17 per cent over 2005 levels by 2020, a voluntary target for which it signed up, following a similar pledge by the US.

Kent said the Durban platform is a way forward that 'builds on our work at Copenhagen and at Cancun.'

Kent said Canada wants to see a new agreement with legally binding commitments for all major emitters.

The European Union has put conditions on signing up for another five-year period, by which time Kyoto would only cover about 11 per cent of global emissions. It wants the US, which never ratified the treaty, and China, which remains exempt as a developing country, to promise to enter talks leading to a broader legally binding treaty by 2015.

But neither China nor the US, the world's largest and second largest polluters, have signalled they will agree to such terms.