Canada has become the first country to formally withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol, saying the pact on cutting carbon emissions is preventing the world from effectively tackling climate change.
Environment Minister Peter Kent announced on Monday that Canada was invoking its legal right to withdraw.
“Kyoto is not the path forward for a global solution to climate change,” Kent said.
“If anything, it’s an impediment.
“We believe that a new agreement with legally binding commitments for all major emitters that allows us as a country to continue to generate jobs and economic growth represents the path forward.”
Canada, joined by Japan and Russia, said last year it would not accept new Kyoto commitments, but withdrawing from the accord is another setback to the treaty concluded with much fanfare in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997.
The protocol, which expires at the end of next year, is the only global treaty that sets down targeted curbs in global emissions, but those curbs apply only to rich countries, excluding the United States, which has refused to ratify the accord.
Canada’s previous Liberal government signed the accord but did little to implement it and Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government never embraced it.
“The Kyoto Protocol does not cover the world’s largest two emitters, United States and China, and therefore cannot work,” Kent said.
Kent’s announcement, which came day after marathon climate talks wrapped up in the South African city of Durban, was not a surprise.
Canada faced international criticism at the Durban talks amid reports it would pull out of Kyoto.
At the talks, negotiators from nearly 200 countries agreed on a deal that sets the world on a path to sign a new climate treaty by 2015 to replace the first Kyoto Protocol.
Kent said the Durban agreement does represent a path forward. Durban’s accord envisions a new treaty with binding targets for all countries to take effect in 2020.
“It allows us to continue to create jobs and growth in Canada,” Kent said.
Kent had said previously that signing the Kyoto Protocol on climate change was one of the previous government’s biggest blunders.
Canada agreed under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce CO2 emissions to 6.0 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012, but its emissions of the gases blamed for damaging Earth’s fragile climate system have instead increased sharply.
Harper’s government last year unveiled its own measures aimed at curbing emissions, in line with US efforts.
The Kyoto accord requires countries to give a year’s notice to withdraw. Kent said pulling out now saved Canada up to $US14 billion ($A13.94 billion) in penalties for not achieving its Kyoto targets.
Kent also cited major impacts on Canada’s economy that will be avoided by withdrawing from the treaty.
“Under Kyoto, Canada is facing radical and irresponsible choices if we’re to avoid punishing multi-billion-dollar payments,” Kent said, noting that Canada produces barely two per cent of global emissions.
“To meet the targets under Kyoto for 2012 would be the equivalent of either removing every car, truck, ATV, tractor, ambulance, police car, and vehicle of every kind from Canadian roads or closing down the entire farming and agricultural sector and cutting heat to every home, office, hospital, factory, and building in Canada.”
Harper’s government is reluctant to hurt Canada’s booming oil sands sector, which is the country’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gases and a reason it has reneged on its Kyoto commitments.
Kent said he would not be surprised if other countries followed Canada in pulling out of Kyoto.
Kent’s announcement drew immediate criticism from environmental groups.
Mike Hudema of Greenpeace Canada said in a statement that it was a further signal that the Harper government was more concerned about protecting polluters than people.
Hannah McKinnon of the Climate Action Network Canada said formally withdrawing from Kyoto after the Durban conference was a slap in the face of the international community.
“It’s a total abdication of our responsibilities,” McKinnon said.
The Durban conference on Sunday approved a roadmap towards an accord that for the first time will bring all major greenhouse-gas emitters under a single legal roof.
If approved as scheduled in 2015, the pact will be operational from 2020 and become the prime weapon in the fight against climate change.
Kent said that in the meantime, Canada would continue to try to reduce its emissions under a domestic plan that calls for a 20 per cent cut from 2006 levels by 2020, or as critics point out, a mere three per cent from 1990 levels.
The latest data last year showed that Canadian carbon emissions were currently up more than 35 per cent from 1990.
