Canada pulls out of, denounces Kyoto Protocol
AP Photo
TORONTO - Canada pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change Monday, saying the accord won't help solve the climate crisis. It dealt a blow to the anti-global warming treaty, which has not been formally renounced by any other country.
Environment Minister Peter Kent said that Canada is invoking its legal right to withdraw and said Kyoto doesn't represent the way forward for Canada or the world.
Canada, joined by Japan and Russia, said last year it will not accept new Kyoto commitments, but withdrawing from the accord is another setback to the treaty concluded with much fanfare in 1997.
The protocol, initially adopted in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, is aimed at fighting global warming. Canada's previous Liberal government signed the accord but did little to implement it and Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government never embraced it.
"The Kyoto Protocol does not cover the world's largest two emitters, United States and China, and therefore cannot work," Kent said. "It's now clear that Kyoto is not the path forward to a global solution to climate change. If anything it's an impediment."
Kent's announcement comes a day after marathon climate talks wrapped up in the South African port city of Durban.
Climate conference approves landmark dealApproval urged for climate pact overhaul
Negotiators from nearly 200 countries agreed on a deal that sets the world on a path to sign a new climate treaty by 2015 to replace the first Kyoto Protocol, which expires at the end of next year.
Kent said the Durban agreement does represent a path forward. Durban's accord envisions a new treaty with binding targets for all countries to take effect in 2020.
"It allows us to continue to create jobs and growth in Canada," Kent said.
Monday's announcement was not a surprise. Canada faced international criticism at the recent climate talks in South Africa amid reports it would pull out of Kyoto. Kent had said previously that signing the Kyoto Protocol on climate change was one of the previous government's biggest blunders.
The accord requires countries to give a year's notice to withdraw. Kent said the move saves Canada $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.
Harper's Conservative government is reluctant to hurt Canada's booming oil sands sector, which is the country's fastest growing source of greenhouse gases and a reason it has reneged on its Kyoto commitments.
Canada has the world's third-largest oil reserves, more than 170 billion barrels. Daily production of 1.5 million barrels from the oil sands is expected to increase to 3.7 million in 2025. Only Saudi Arabia and Venezuela have more reserves. But critics say the enormous amount of energy and water needed in the extraction process increases greenhouse gas emissions.
Kent said Canada produces "barely 2 percent" of global emissions and said the previous Liberal government signed onto Kyoto in 1997 without any intention of meeting its targets.
He said the Kyoto Protocol originally covered countries generating less than 30 percent of global emissions and now it covers just 13 percent. He said Canada is committed to addressing climate change in a way that's fair. Canada insists any agreement has to cover all nations.
He said he would not be surprised if other countries follow Canada in pulling out of Kyoto.
Kent's announcement drew immediate criticism from environmental groups. Mike Hudema of Greenpeace Canada said in a statement that it is further signal that the Harper government is more concerned about protecting polluters than people.
Hannah McKinnon of the Climate Action Network Canada said formally withdrawing from Kyoto after the Durban, South Africa conference is a slap in the face of the international community.
"It's a total abdication of our responsibilities," McKinnon said.
Opposition New Democrat lawmaker Megan Leslie disputed the dollar figures involved and said there are no penalties under Kyoto. Leslie said pulling out saves the Conservatives from having to report that Canada is falling short of its Kyoto targets.
"It's like we're the kid in school who knows they're gonna fail the class, so we have to drop it before that actually happens," Leslie said.
Scientists say that if levels of greenhouse gases continue to rise, eventually the world's climate will reach a tipping point, with irreversible melting of some ice sheets and a several-foot(meter) rise in sea levels.
They cannot pinpoint exactly when that would happen, but the two-decade-long climate negotiations have been focused on preventing global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.2 degrees Celsius) above current levels by the end of this century.
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(As soon as we get rid of our ratbag-scum, lying green/red government.
Before I go, here is an update from the IPCC's "scientists" on their latest "computer model research".
After initializing and parametrizing hundreds of unknown factors, inserting divergent proxy data and ignoring any difficult natural forcing factors,we ran hundreds of simulations until we obtained the results we wanted-an ensemble of meaningless projected results,which we then averaged. We utilized the liberally unprincipled component method to homogenize and sensitize this to produce a new hockey stick,which gave a very robust prediction (>95% probability) that we are all being totally screwed.
This isn't about "climate change", "global warming", "global whining" or what ever sound bite you care to use. What it IS about is somehow managing to come to some kind global agreement to conserve what little natural resource we have left given the numbers we now have.
Many who oppose the Kyoto Protocol complain that a consequence of ratification and adherence will lead to putting the brakes on growth, handicapping the developed world thus causing the economies of the "rich" nations to slow down and reduce living standards.
That's the whole point.
As it stands now, the present global economy can NOT be sustained even longer than about one or two generations, let alone on any basis that could be remotely called "permanent". Flatly stated, living standards will have to come down. We simply do not have the stuff necessary in the unlimited quantities that it takes to maintain them as they are now.
Nor is it just America that has to rein in. Or Canada. Even semi developed nations like Albania, Cost Rica, Kiribati, and Kazakistan are going to have cut back. At least a little. This belt tightening needs to be world wide and it WILL be painful. China and India, in particular, will have to give up any ideas about a car in every driveway or a chicken in every pot.
Does this mean Lloyd advocates throwing everyone out of their SUV's? Forcing them to live in Soviet style apartment blocks? Eliminate meat from their diets? Making them give up their TV's, cellphone, hair dryers and toaster ovens? No I do not. I hate it, but I believe that unless we take difficult measures now, it will come to that or something similarly austere.
That's what we face at present. More and more people having to share a rapidly vanishing resource base and while the Kyoto Protocol is as flawed as Tiger Woods, at least it addresses one small aspect of the global problem I've stated.
About the only way out of this conundrum is a rigorously agressive birth control program to reduce our numbers as rapidly as possible given feasible birth rate solutions. Cut world wide numbers to a point that our present economies ARE sustainable.....
....There is another way. Some of you may already have an idea what it is but I refuse to give it the dignity of a mention let alone an advocation.
How do you stop fossil fuels from polluting the environment? By binding the pollutants to engineered molecules that will safely fall to earth as calcium carbonate (CaCO3) for example. As an added bonus in the case of the CaC03 the recombined molecule acts as an antacid that will relieve the oceans high acidity levels.
The dosage will be determined by the amount of pollutants in a region with the wind patterns.
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