Canada Roundly Criticized for Exiting Kyoto Protocol

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"For a vulnerable country like Tuvalu, it’s an act of sabotage on our future," Ian Fry, Tuvalu's lead negotiator told Reuters.
"Withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol is a reckless and totally irresponsible act."

The environmentalist group Greenpeace also blasted Canada for pulling out of Kyoto Protocol.

In a letter to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Mike Hudema, a representative of Greenpeace Canada, wrote: "The Harper government has imposed a death sentence on many of the world's most vulnerable populations by pulling out of Kyoto.”

Canada’s pull-out comes just days after a UN climate conference in Durban, South Africa in which 194 nations agreed to negotiate terms of a pact that will ultimately lead to taking measures to slow the rate of climate change.

Canada is the first nation to exit the Kyoto treaty, which was adopted in 1997 as a coordinated international effort to battle global warming. Under terms of the pact, nations are encouraged to undergo voluntary measures to cut carbon emissions.

However, the accord only applied bindingly to advanced nations, not developing countries like India and China. The United States had also rejected ratifying the treaty.

Canadian environment minister Peter Kent explained the pull-out by complaining that ''Kyoto is not the path forward for a global solution for climate change. Kyoto, for Canada, is in the past, and as such we are invoking our legal right to withdraw from Kyoto.”

Kent suggested that greenhouse gas emissions will continue to rise even with imposed curbs since the U.S. and China are not bound by Kyoto.

“The Kyoto Protocol does not cover the world’s largest two [greenhouse gas] emitters, the United States and China, and therefore cannot work,” he said.