Canada’s newly reelected Conservative government has confirmed that it will not support an extension of the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions after 2012. Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper had already announced his government would not meet the binding emissions cuts it committed to under the first round of Kyoto.
The Kyoto Protocol has been ratified by 192 of the UNFCCC Parties. Under the Protocol, 37 industrialized countries have legally binding emission limitation and reduction commitments. The Kyoto Protocol contains key rules to quantify and monitor efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and important market-based mechanisms that enable cost-effective mitigation.
Harper has opted to renege on Kyoto even though the International Energy Agency found that found fossil fuel emissions hit record highs last year, topping 30 gigatons, (about 5 percent more than the previous record set in 2008).
Ottawa, joined the US, Russia and Japan in rejecting an extension of the international agreement at the UN preparatory climate change conference in Bonn, Germany.
Buoyed by their recent election victory, Conservatives can be expected to exploit the tar sands and do as little as possible on the environmental front.
© 2011, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.
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