Canada pulls out of Kyoto Protocol
13 Dec 2011
In a blow to the anti-global warming treaty, Canada yesterday pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change saying, the accord would not help solve the climate crisis.
According to environment minister, Peter Kent, Canada was invoking its legal right to withdraw and said Kyoto did mot represent the way forward for Canada or the world.
Last year, Canada along with Japan and Russia said it would not accept new Kyoto commitments, but a withdrawal from the accord comes a setback to the treaty concluded with much fanfare in 1997.
The protocol, initially adopted in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, aims to counter global warming.
Though the previous Liberal government in Canada had signed the accord, little was done by way its implementation and prime minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government never embraced it.
The Kyoto Protocol did not cover the world's largest two emitters, US and China, and therefore could not work according to Kent said. He added it was now clear that Kyoto was not the path forward to a global solution to climate change, if anything it was an impediment.
