CANADA’S DECISION to pull out of the Kyoto protocol on climate change right after the UN conference in Durban, and becoming the first nation to do so, has been condemned as “an affront to nearly one billion people” in poorer, more vulnerable countries.
Tim Gore, Oxfam’s climate change adviser, said Canada’s exit from the only international treaty aimed at curbing global warming was also a “stark reminder” that developed countries were not doing enough to help those fighting climate change right now.
Rumours that Canada would be “out of Kyoto by Christmas” swept through the Durban conference during its first week, but were officially denied at the time, only to be confirmed by environment minister Peter Kent on his return to Ottawa.
“We are invoking our legal right to formally withdraw from Kyoto,” he said on Monday night, adding that to meet the protocol’s targets would involve “removing every car, truck, all-terrain vehicle, tractor, ambulance, police car and vehicle off every kind of Canadian road”.
The Conservative government of prime minister Stephen Harper maintains that Canada would be subject to penalties equivalent to C$14 billion (€10.33 billion) under the terms of the treaty for not cutting emissions by the required amount by 2012.
Mr Kent claimed that “the writing on the wall for Kyoto has been recognised” even by countries that had agreed in Durban to enter a second commitment period under the protocol, extending it to 2017 – five years beyond its current end-2012 expiry date.
Canada’s former Liberal government signed up to Kyoto, which dictated a cut in emissions to 6 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. But Canada’s emissions in 2009 were 17 per cent above 1990, in part because of Alberta’s expanding oil sands development.
Dubbed “Canada’s Dirty Secret”, the oil sands have made it the largest supplier of oil and natural gas to the US – displacing American imports from the volatile Middle East – and the Canadian government as well as the oil firms want to keep this going.
Environmentalists were quick to condemn the decision. “It’s a national disgrace,” said Graham Saul of Climate Action Network Canada. “Prime minister Harper just spat in the faces of people around the world for whom climate change is increasingly a life and death issue.”
Megan Leslie MP, of the opposition New Democratic Party, accused the government of abdicating its international responsibilities. “It’s like where the kid in school who knows he’s going to fail the class, so he drops it before that happens,” she said.
At the end of the Durban conference, the Climate Action Network – representing more than 700 groups in 38 countries – awarded Canada the “Colossal Fossil Award” for accumulating the most “Fossil of the Day” points for its negotiating tactics.
Pat Finnegan, of Irish climate group Grian, which is affiliated to the network, said Canada’s decision “only confirms what has been obvious for years – Canadians are North Americans, and North Americans seem to believe they live on a different planet from the rest of us”. – (Additional reporting: Reuters)