Blow for Kyoto as Canada quits climate change treaty

CANADA has become the first country to announce it would withdraw from the Kyoto protocol on climate change, dealing a symbolic blow to the already troubled global treaty.

Environment Minister Peter Kent broke the news on his return from talks in Durban, where countries agreed to extend Kyoto for five years and write a new deal forcing all big polluters for the first time to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Canada, a major energy producer which critics complain is becoming a climate renegade, has long complained Kyoto is unworkable precisely because it excludes so many significant emitters.

“As we’ve said, Kyoto for Canada is in the past… We are invoking our legal right to formally withdraw from Kyoto,” Kent said.

“The Kyoto Protocol does not cover the world’s largest two emitters, United States and China, and therefore cannot work.

“It’s now clear that Kyoto is not the path forward to a global solution to climate change. If anything it’s an impediment.”

The Conservative government of prime minister Stephen Harper says Canada would be subject to penalties equivalent to $13.6 billion (€10.3bn) under the terms of the treaty for not cutting emissions by the required amount by 2012.

“To meet the targets under Kyoto for 2012 would be the equivalent of either removing every car truck, all-terrain vehicle, tractor, ambulance, police car and vehicle off every kind of Canadian road,” said Kent.

Environmentalists quickly blasted Kent for his comments. “It’s a national disgrace. Prime minister Harper just spat in the faces of people around the world for whom climate change is increasingly a life and death issue,” said Graham Saul of Climate Action Network Canada.