Canada to pull out of Kyoto agreement

The Canadian environment minister Peter Kent said the protocol "does not represent a way forward for Canada" and the country would face crippling fines for failing to meet its targets.

The protocol, initially adopted in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, is aimed at fighting global warming.

Canada's expected decision is legal and makes it the first nation to pull out of the global treaty.

Kent said Kyoto is "in the past" for Canada and said Canada was only invoking its legal right to withdraw from Kyoto.

He said he would be formally advising the United Nations of his country's intention to pull out.

Kent said meeting Canada's obligations under Kyoto would cost 10.3 billion and said that this was "the legacy of an incompetent Liberal government". Canada's previous Liberal government signed the accord but current Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government never embraced it.

Kent's announcement came just hours after a last-minute deal on climate change was agreed in Durban. Talks on a new legal deal covering all countries will begin next year and end by 2015, coming into effect by 2020, the UN climate conference decided.

The environment minister said "We believe that a new agreement that will allow us to generate jobs and economic growth represents the way forward."

"The Kyoto Protocol is a dated document, it is actually considered by many as an impediment to the move forward but there was good will demonstrated in Durban, the agreement that we ended up with provides the basis for an agreement by 2015," Kent said.