TORONTO — Canada’s environment minister said Monday his country is pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.
Peter Kent said Canada is invoking its legal right to withdraw and said Kyoto doesn’t represent the way forward for Canada or the world.
Canada, joined by Japan and Russia, said last year it will not accept new Kyoto commitments, but renouncing the accord is another setback to the treaty that concluded with much fanfare in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997. No nation had formally renounced the protocol until now.
The protocol is aimed at fighting global warming. 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.
Kent’s announcement comes a day after marathon climate talks wrapped up in the South African port city of Durban. Negotiators from nearly 200 countries agreed on a deal that sets the world on a path to signing a new climate treaty by 2015 to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires at the end of next year.
“The Kyoto Protocol does not cover the world’s largest two emitters, United States and China, and therefore cannot work,” Kent said.
The accord requires countries to give a year’s notice to withdraw. Kent said the move saves Canada $14 billion in penalties for not achieving its Kyoto targets.
