Pullout Deals Blow to Kyoto

Canada's official pullout from the Kyoto Protocol on Monday drew strong criticism, as the move dealt another heavy blow to the already shaky global framework on fighting climate change.

Canadian Environment Minister Peter Kent made the announcement on Monday, when some negotiators were still on their way back home after an intense final few days at the Durban climate conference, which ended on Sunday morning in South Africa.

The move by the Canadian government is "regrettable", Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said at a news briefing in Beijing.

"It flies in the face of the efforts of the international community for Canada to leave the Kyoto Protocol at a time when the Durban meeting, as everyone knows, made important progress by securing a second phase of commitment to the protocol," Liu said.

The 1997 protocol sets binding carbon emission reduction targets for industrialized countries. Its first phase targets expire in 2012. Developing countries, which have historically contributed little to carbon emissions, are subject to voluntary efforts to mitigate their emissions. The United States signed but never ratified the treaty.

The Durban meeting decided a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol would start in 2013, a success hailed by Chinese negotiators as the treaty is viewed as a cornerstone for the whole international climate regime.

Canada has become the first country to officially quit from the treaty. Kent said the move saves Canada US$14 billion in penalties for not achieving its Kyoto targets.

"To meet the targets under Kyoto for 2012 would be the equivalent of either removing every car, truck, ATV, tractor, ambulance, police car and vehicle of every kind from Canadian roads or closing down the entire farming and agriculture sector and cutting heat to every home, office, hospital, factory and building in Canada," Kent said.

The Canadian government is also reluctant to hurt the country's booming oil sands sector, also a fast growing source of greenhouse gases and a reason it has walked away from its Kyoto commitments.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, Canada committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions to 6 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. However, its actual annual carbon emissions have increased by about one-third since 1990.

China called on the Canadian government to abide by its commitment.

"We also hope that Canada will face up to its due responsibilities and duties and continue abiding by its commitments, and take a positive, constructive attitude toward participating in international cooperation to respond to climate change," Liu said.

Although a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol was secured at Durban, its implementation will be unavoidably weakened, as only the European countries are serious about new emission targets, observers said.

And Canada's official pullout from the treaty may only further damage the framework.

The Durban conference also decided that talks on a new global climate deal covering all countries should begin next year and end by 2015, and come into effect by 2020.

"Both Russia and Japan said they will not extend their commitments under Kyoto, and New Zealand and Australia also notified that they may not join a second commitment period," said Martin Khor, executive director of the South Centre.

"With only the European countries left, the Kyoto protocol may live on till 2017 or 2020, but by then it may already be overshadowed by the new deal," Khor said.