Canada formally withdraws from Kyoto Protocol

The Canadian Environment Minister Peter Kent yesterday announced that Canada is to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol.

Speaking at a Parliament news conference in Toronto, Kent said that “Kyoto for Canada is in the past. As such, we are invoking our legal right to formally withdraw.”

The decision will save the nation an estimated C$14 billion in penalties that would have occurred from missing emission targets set within the 1997 Kyoto Protocol agreement. “That's $1,600 from every Canadian family - that's the Kyoto cost to Canadians, that was the legacy of an incompetent Liberal government”, he said.

Kent added that regardless of the induced penalties, global emissions would rise as the two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, China and the United States, were not covered by the Kyoto accord. “We believe that a new agreement that will allow us to generate jobs and economic growth represents the way forward.”

Canada’s withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol comes just 24 hours after world leaders from 194 countries at the United Nations climate talks in Durban agreed to a draft a new international treaty by 2015. The treaty, to be effective from 2020, will be the first legally binding deal that covers all countries, including the world’s biggest polluters the United States, China and India.

Established by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), 1997’s Kyoto Protocol saw a commitment by the major industrial economies to reduce their annual C02 emissions to below levels recorded in 1990. Canada again was one of the 191 countries that signed the agreement but it was clear from near the beginning that the North American state would struggle to meet its legally binding targets.

Canada’s Conservative government has pledged to reduce its greenhouse emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, a commitment well below the original targets set by the Kyoto Protocol.
 

 

Image 01: MSVG | Flickr

Image 02: Climate Action Stock Photos