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Canada pulls Kyoto plug Ends wavering by abandoning climate change treaty rather than face equivalent of C$14B in penalties; will pursue lower emissions Gary Park For Petroleum News
Faced with penalties equivalent to C$14 billion, the Canadian government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has ended six years of indecision and become the first of 189 participants in the Kyoto Protocol to abandon the climate change treaty.
“Kyoto for Canada is in the past,” declared Environment Minister Peter Kent, two hours after returning to Ottawa from the United Nations climate change summit in Durban, South Africa. “We are invoking our legal right to withdraw.”
Alberta Environment Minister Diana McQueen said Kyoto didn’t work for her province either given that the United States, China and India, which account for half of the global greenhouse gas emissions, were not parties to the treaty.
Since Harper was elected in 2006 and inherited the previous government’s decision to ratify Kyoto he has insisted that Canada would place itself at an economic disadvantage unless it could harmonize climate change policies with those of the U.S., its largest trading partner.
Canada has also been pressing for “legal parity” among all the world’s emitters to ensure that China and India — fast emerging as global economic powers — along with other developing countries have the same obligations as the established wealthy countries.
The deal reached in Durban commits 194 countries to reach an agreement in 2015 to replace Kyoto with rules that would take effect after 2020.
‘Sector-by-sector approach’ In the meantime, Kent said Canada will “pursue a sector-by-sector approach” to achieving its goal of lowering emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 as previously agreed to at a United Nations summit in Copenhagen two years ago.
He estimated that if Canada remained in Kyoto it would be subject to buying C$14 billion in carbon credits by the end of 2012, or the equivalent of moving every vehicle from Canadian roads, or closing down the entire farming and agricultural sector.
Canada’s GHG emissions, according to a UN filing, accounted for about 1.5 percent of emissions in 2008.
But, despite curbing GHGs and promoting the use of cleaner fuels and renewable energy, Canada’s overall emissions are up 24 percent since 1990.
By far the biggest contributor to GHGs is the energy sector, whose emissions have risen 61 percent since 2004, largely stemming from a 600 percent surge in oil sands GHGs to 15 million metric tons per year or 2 percent of Canada’s total output.
To meet the 2012 Kyoto targets Canada would have been required to lower emissions to 558 million metric tons a year from 734 million tons in 2008, according to data filed with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Regardless of rapid expansion of the oil sands, the sector’s emissions are estimated at less than 0.02 percent of the global total and, even if production doubles by 2020, it would still be less than 0.5 percent.
“It’s really only the Europeans who are staying with Kyoto,” Kent said, predicting other countries will soon follow Canada’s lead.
U.S. doesn’t expect impact Todd Stern, the United States special climate envoy, said Canada’s decision should have little impact on negotiations on a future pact that would include binding cuts on all countries.
“I don’t think it’s going to have a big impact on the shape of a new regime and the nature of the new negotiations,” he said.
UN climate chief Christiana Figueres said the Durban agreement to a second commitment period for Kyoto is essential if there is to be a “universal, legal” pact.
China and Japan, along with the United Kingdom and other European nations, were quick to criticize Canada’s decision.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said the move was “regrettable” and China’s state news agency, Xinhua, denounced the action as “preposterous,” calling it “an excuse to shirk responsibility.”
Japan’s Environment Minister Goshi Hosono urged Canada to stay with the pact, saying the Kyoto framework includes “important elements” to fight climate change.
Mexico said the withdrawal would create “despair” at a time when global cooperation is essential to “to give a message of hope to humanity.”
However, Harper, while expressing concern about the problems posed by a changing climate, brushed off the Kyoto targets as “stupid” and a threat to Canada’s economy.
Politicians from virtually all of the world’s 194 countries proclaimed victory after the Durban deal, although there is no ironclad guarantee that participating countries will be legally bound by whatever carbon reductions are agreed on.
Kent said only that he was “cautiously optimistic” — interpreted by some observers as diplomatic language for saying no deal is likely — that a protocol could be reached by 2015.
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