Environment Minister Peter Kent says Canada withdrawing from Kyoto Protocol

It's official: the Conservative government is formally pulling Canada out of the Kyoto Protocol.

Making the announcement today (December 12), Environment Minister Peter Kent called the international treaty on greenhouse-gas emissions a costly "impediment" to a global solution to climate change.

"As we have said, Kyoto - for Canada - is in the past. As such, we are invoking our legal right to formally withdraw from Kyoto. This decision formalizes what we have said since 2006 that we will not implement the Kyoto Protocol," Kent said in the foyer of the House of Commons.

"We remain committed to negotiating an international climate change agreement that works. That means getting a pact that involves all the major emitters."

Environmental groups are condemning the government's move.

"The Harper government has imposed a death sentence on many of the world's most vulnerable populations by pulling out of Kyoto," Mike Hudema, Greenpeace Canada's climate and energy campaigner, said in a statement. "The decision to leave Kyoto behind destabilizes the promise of action on the climate crisis. This is a further signal that the Harper government is more concerned about protecting polluters than people."

At the recently concluded United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa, environmentalists gave Canada, along with the United States, a Colossal Fossil for "blocking greater progress in the talks".

"The Canadian government has made headlines and earned criticism from the international community in Durban for refusing to sign onto a second Kyoto commitment period, calling critical climate financing 'guilt payments', and bullying least developed countries into leaving the Kyoto Protocol," read the statement accompanying the sarcastic award.

The award statement also said: "Canada remains the only country in the world to have weakened its emissions targets after returning from COP 15 in Copenhagen and the only country to have signed and ratified the Kyoto protocol and then say that it has no intention of meeting its targets. The Government killed the only major federal renewable energy program in the country while plowing over 1 billion dollars a year of subsidies into the oil sector."

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Comments

15 Comments

Doctor

Dec 12, 2011 at 3:34pm

How much do the Harperites think it will cost corporate polluters NOT to address climate change? The price will be far far greater than sitting on their (oil) cans. What a bunch of sleazy idiots.

Gentleman Jack

Dec 12, 2011 at 3:41pm

Good decision.
Climate science is this century's eugenics project.
Simple Minded/Useless Eaters = Carbon Overproducers.
Who decides who produces too much carbon? Boards full of University Educated, same as they pulled last century with sterilization.

Same beat, same tune, slightly different University departments involved in the all-encompassing eugenics plan is all.

Kim

Dec 12, 2011 at 3:48pm

@Doctor:

Regarding your question about the cost of not acting on climate change in the short-term the International Energy Agency's 2011 World Energy Outlook states unequivocally that:

"Delaying action [on climate change] is a false economy: for every $1 of investment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before 2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions."

http://www.iea.org/weo/docs/weo2011/pressrelease.pdf

viva neocon

Dec 12, 2011 at 4:24pm

Is Canada really a sovereign nation? I thought that Bush Neocons are controlling Canada...

Neo-Cons r Stupid

Dec 12, 2011 at 5:22pm

Is anyone really surprised that the Fundamentalist Neo-Cons don't beliee in Climate Change Science?

These are the same people that wanted to pray the Gay away!

The same idiots who think Global Warming is no big deal!

The same idiots who give back Cash to Big Oil via Rebates.

The same idiots that do not charge a high Royalty on one time Resource Extraction like...

* Norway (Second Richest Nation due to Oil & Gas Controlled by the State KEEPING THE OIL CASH FOR THE PEOPLE- STAT OIL,

* UK (North Sea Oil)

* & Last but Not Least Newfoundland & Labrador (Danny Williams).

But no Canada just gives away their Oil & Gas with amongst the LOWEST Royalties on the Planet.

The Fucking Arabs have enough sense to collect high Royalties & Revenues from Oil & Gas to keep for themselves.

But apparently not the Texans from Alberta...YeeeeHawwwww :)

Save Vancouver

Dec 12, 2011 at 5:44pm

Good riddance, any agreement that allows countries like China, with no interest in controlling emissions, to pollute with impunity is garbage.

Kim

Dec 12, 2011 at 6:29pm

@Gentlemen Jack:
You wrote that, "Climate science is this century's...?"
Do you know that climate science dates all the way back to the 1800s? There's a thorough history here (http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.htm) and a shorter version here (http://www.theresilientearth.com/files/chapter_2.html) if you're interested. Joseph Fourier's 1929 paper explaining his discovery of the greenhouse effect (i.e. gases such as carbon dioxide and methane trap heat in the atmosphere) is also worth a look.

Concerned Citizen of T-Dot

Dec 12, 2011 at 8:21pm

What our government is doing is disgusting, being ignorant to a problem doesn't make it go away. I wish the Harper government would listen to the people for once and take some affirmative action in making our world a cleaner place.

Lawson1945

Dec 12, 2011 at 8:55pm

This is great news!

Gentleman Jack

Dec 12, 2011 at 11:20pm

@Kim

I'm not disputing the science---I also don't dispute the facts involved in last century's eugenics movement: the mentally subnormal did in fact overbreed and they are a big burden on society. Oh well, we have to deal with it. We are simply not fit to regiment breeding, climate, etc. etc. because that ends up involving the appointment of boards of "useful eaters" to decide who else is a "useless eater"/"useless carbon producer."

The issue is with the notion that any scientific conclusion necessitates a political conclusion, especially an authoritarian political regime. Climate science is this century's eugenics in the sense that climate science is this century's chance for the University to re-assert its hegemony in a world where it is increasingly seen for what it is: an unreconstructed, undemocratic network of "old boys" (now girls, too!) whose first concern is reiterating their hegemony at any cost.

And please don't tell me they don't have a huge hegemonic power-structure to protect; it is worse now than it was 200 years ago, and only getting worse. A university degree to be a lawyer? For serious? No more "buyer beware", instead we have University Monopolies on pretty much everything, even things that only involve the study of publicly available reading materials, e.g. Law?