Canada is formally withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol, becoming the first country to abandon the agreement on climate change after ratifying it, its environment minister announced Monday.
"We are invoking Canada's legal right to formally withdraw from Kyoto," Canadian Environment Minister Peter Kent said, following a marathon UN climate conference in South Africa.
The landmark pact reached in 1997 is the only global treaty that sets down targeted curbs in global emissions.
But its targeted curbs apply only to rich countries, excluding the United States, which has refused to ratify the accord.
Canada agreed under the protocol to reduce CO2 emissions to 6.0 percent below 1990 levels by 2012, but its emissions of the gases blamed for damaging Earth's fragile climate system have instead increased sharply.
Pulling out of Kyoto now allows Canada to avoid paying penalties of up to $13.6bn for missing its targets.
Canada had previously said that emissions commitments which do not require action from emerging giants such as China and India, as well as from the United States, do not make sense.
The UN climate conference in Durban, South Africa on Sunday approved a roadmap towards an accord that for the first time will bring all major greenhouse-gas emitters under a single legal roof.
