Canada quits Kyoto climate pact

(CNN) -- Canada officially renounced the expiring Kyoto Protocol on Monday, a day after international negotiators agreed to extend the treaty's limits on carbon emissions blamed for a warming climate.

Environment Minister Peter Kent said Ottawa would keep working to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and help negotiate a new framework for a global pact. But in a statement to reporters on his return from last week's climate conference in South Africa, Kent said that for Canada, Kyoto "is in the past."

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government has long opposed the Kyoto protocol, and Kent told delegates at last week's Durban conference that the previous government never should have agreed to it. He said Kyoto's goals were unworkable because the United States and China, the world's two largest sources of carbon emissions, never agreed to the treaty.

The opposition New Democratic Party has accused the government of "standing up for big polluters" at the expense of ordinary Canadians and risking the country's reputation by abandoning Kyoto.

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