Coherent Green Strategy Needed As Canada Shirk Kyoto

Labour have called on the Government to formulate a "coherent strategy" after Canada pulled out of a world-wide deal on climate change on Monday evening.

Caroline Flint, Labour's Shadow Climate Change Secretary, said Canada’s decision to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change only two days after a major conference was "deeply disappointing".

The north American country's Environment minister, Peter Kent, said on Monday that the global accord intended to tackle global warming "does not represent a way forward for Canada".

He added that it was a mistake for Canada to have signed up for Kyoto and described the agreement as being "in the past" .

"We are invoking our legal right to formally withdraw from Kyoto," he said in Toronto.

Responding to the news, Caroline Flint said the only way to tackle climate change was by securing a global legally binding treaty on carbon emissions, which includes all countries. "The British Government must come up with a coherent strategy to build on our strong relationships with countries such as Canada to get them behind world efforts to cut carbon emissions and prevent dangerous climate change," she said.

The news comes as the agreement on climate change brokered this weekend was snubbed as a "failure" by environmental campaigners, Greenpeace.

On Monday morning, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the outcome of weekend talks by countries at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa, saying they represented a "significant agreement".

The UN said that, after extended negotiations, the 194 parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agreed on a package of decisions, which include the launch of a protocol that would apply to all members, a second commitment period for the existing Kyoto Protocol and the launch of the Green Climate Fund.

In a statement issued by his spokesperson, Mr Ban said the new accord is "essential for stimulating greater action and for raising the level of ambition and the mobilization of resources to respond to the challenges of climate change."

However, Greenpeace have responded to the agreements saying UN climate talks in Durban had ended the same way they began, "in failure".

Kumi Naidoo, Greenpeace International Executive Director, said: "The grim news is that the blockers lead by the US have succeeded in inserting a vital get-out clause that could easily prevent the next big climate deal being legally binding. If that loophole is exploited it could be a disaster. And the deal is due to be implemented 'from 2020' leaving almost no room for increasing the depth of carbon cuts in this decade when scientists say we need emissions to peak."

(DW)