Canada to Be First to Pull out of Kyoto Protocol?

While all indications would appear to point to the fact that Canada intends to pull out of the global Kyoto Protocol on climate change, the nation's center-right government has yet to declare it will no longer honor its commitment, according to a Reuters (News - Alert) news report today.

The Kyoto Protocol is a multi-national agreement signed under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC or FCCC). Its goal was to fight global warming by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses emitted by the world's developed nations. The Protocol was adopted in December 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, and went into effect in February of 2005. As of September 2011, 191 states have signed and ratified the protocol. The United States was not one of the signatories.

While Canada is still a de-facto participant in the Kyoto Protocol, there have been signs that it no longer intends to honor it. Canada dismissed the Kyoto Protocol on climate change today as a thing of the past, but declined to confirm a media report it will formally pull out of the international treaty before the end of this year, according to Reuters. Talks to shore up waning enthusiasm for the Protocol opened in South Africa today.

“Kyoto is the past,” said Environment Minister Peter Kent, describing the decision by Canada's previous Liberal government to sign on to the protocol as “one of the biggest blunders they made.”

Canada says in place of Kyoto, it favors a new international deal that will help reduce the global emission of greenhouses gases that will bind all emitters, including China and India, who thus far are not included in meeting Kyoto's current targets.

In the years since Kyoto was signed, two other signatories – Japan and Russia – have shown reluctance to proceed with their commitments under the agreement, though no nation has formally pulled out of it yet.

According to its Kyoto obligations, Canada would have needed to cut its emissions to six percent below 1990 levels by 2012. In 2009, Canada emitted 690 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent – about 17 percent above 1990 levels – largely due to an increase in oil extraction from oil sands in northern Alberta, says Reuters.