Canada has announced its intention to withdraw from the Kyoto treaty on greenhouse gas emissions, sandbagging the other signatories to the convention.
The Kyoto protocol, initially adopted in Kyoto, Japan in 1997, was designed to combat global warming with the agreement allowing countries like China and India take voluntary, but non binding steps to reduce their greenhouse gas carbon emissions.
International condemnation was swift.
China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mr Liu Weimin said at a news briefing that "It is regrettable and 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. 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 towards participating in international cooperation to respond to climate change."
Xinhua, China's state news agency, labeled Ottawa's decision preposterous, an excuse to shirk responsibility and implored the Canadian government to reverse its decision so it could help reduce global emissions of GGEs.
Beijing's comments are significant, not least because the PRC is currently the world's biggest producer of GGEs after the US, but China has stalwartly insisted that the Kyoto Protocol remain the foundation of the world's efforts to curb GGE emissions, which scientists maintain are a significant contributor to global warming. Pleading its special status as a developing nation China at the recently concluded climate change negotiations in Durban was granted an extension of the terms of implementing the Kyoto protocol until 2017 even as it bowed to pressure to launch later talks for a new pact to succeed the Kyoto protocol that would legally oblige all the big GGE producers to act.
Japan also expressed displeasure at the Canadian decision, but in a more nuanced approach, Japanese environment minister Mr Goshi Hosono urged Canada to continue to support the Kyoto agreement, which included important elements that could help fight climate change.
UN climate chief Ms Christiana Figueres opined in a statement released to the press that "I regret that Canada has announced it will withdraw and am surprised over its timing. Whether or not Canada is a party to the Kyoto Protocol, it has a legal obligation under the convention to reduce its emissions, and a moral obligation to itself and future generations to lead in the global effort."
A spokesman for France's Foreign Ministry called Canada's decision bad news for the fight against climate change.
The silence from Washington on the issue was significant, as the United States Bush administration refused to sign the protocol, arguing instead that China and other big emerging emitters should come under a legally binding framework that does away with the either or distinction between advanced and developing countries.
(Sourced from www.wallstreetsectorselector.com)
