Canada Drops Kyoto Accord

Canada's environment minister said today his country is pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. Peter Kent said that Canada is invoking its legal right to withdraw and said Kyoto doesn't represent the way forward for Canada or the world. Canada, joined by Japan and Russia, said last year it will not accept new Kyoto commitments, but renouncing the accord is another setback to the treaty concluded with much fanfare in 1997. No nation has formally renounced the protocol until now.

"The Kyoto Protocol does not cover the world's largest two emitters, United States and China, and therefore cannot work," Kent said. "It's now clear that Kyoto is not the path forward to a global solution to climate change. If anything it's an impediment." Kent's announcement comes a day after marathon climate talks wrapped up in the South African port city of Durban. Negotiators from nearly 200 countries agreed on a deal that sets the world on a path to sign a new climate treaty by 2015 to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires at the end of next year. (More climate change stories.)