Mobile UPI  |   About UPI  |   UPI en Español  |   UPI Arabic  |   UPIU  |   My Account
Search:
Go

Canada pulling out of Kyoto climate pact

|
|
 
  
Published: Dec. 12, 2011 at 6:25 PM
Advertisement

TORONTO, Dec. 12 (UPI) -- Canada says it is withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, four years after saying it did not intend to meet its annual commitments.

The protocol "does not represent a way forward for Canada" and would have forced the country to take "radical and irresponsible choices," Environment Minister Pete Kent said Monday.

The long-expected legal move makes Canada to first nation officially to pull out of the global climate and emissions treaty, the BBC reported.

"Kyoto, for Canada, is in the past, and as such we are invoking our legal right to withdraw from Kyoto," Kent said, adding he would be formally advising the United Nations of his country's intention to pull out.

Adopted in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, the protocol is aimed at addressing global warming.

The cost of meeting Canada's obligations under Kyoto would be $13.6 billion, Kent said.

"That's $1,600 from every Canadian family -- that's the Kyoto cost to Canadians, that was the legacy of an incompetent liberal government," the Conservative minister said.

Topics: United Nations
© 2011 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

Order reprints
  
Join the conversation
Most Popular Collections
Notable deaths of 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee AmfAR Cinema Against AIDS gala
Indianapolis 500 Presidential Medal of Freedom Memorial Day around the nation
Additional Science News Stories
1 of 27
Snigdha Nandipati of San Diego wins Finals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee
View Caption
Snigdha Nandipati of San Diego, California watches confetti rain down as she wins the two-day Scripps National Spelling Bee championship, May 31, 2012, in National Harbor, Maryland. Nandipati successfully spelled the word .* guetapens *, meaning to lure or ambush. UPI/Mike Theiler
fark
Photoshop this huge manatee
Clear your desks, get out your pencils, and have your hot teacher smooth her skirt back down: it's...
Turns out judges don't like it so much when you lie to them: George Zimmerman bond revoked for lying...
Indiana church where congregation cheered as toddler sang "Ain't no homos going to make it to heaven,"...
"Chivalry isn't dead, you stupid biatch" and 50 other funniest tweets of all time
Happy 38th birthday, Alanis Morissette