Most neutral parties regard the Kyoto Treaty as more of a political/economic effort than a science-based climate one. Regardless of how much blame you place on CO2 for current climate change, the fact that Germany and France rammed through a date that made it easier for them (for Germany, a date right after re-unification, so they simply closed World War II-era Soviet factories in E. Germany and France brought on more nuclear plants at that time) to achieve their CO2 goals is suspect by anyone not on the partisan fringe.
Yet Canada has a strong green movement so regardless of what the treaty actually meant, politicians were going to approve it - on contrast to the US, where the President has no authority to approve treaties and he knew it would never pass, so he could issue an environmental placebo by supporting the idea.
Now Canada may have had enough - like other world economies, they are in trouble since they discovered money does not magically multiply if government simply takes more of it from taxpayers and moves it around. Their heavy reliance on oil means they are the furthest of the 191 signatories from meeting their 1990 target, instead having gone up over 30% since then.
Their choice now is to either annul the treaty or spend $6.7 billion in useless carbon credits. What will they do? Hard to say, but they can't like that they are spending money on penalties while China and India - 'developing' nations under Kyoto despite China being the world's largest emitter of CO2 - are completely exempt. Even Greenpeace can now see why Kyoto is and always was flawed, should they choose to get a clue.
Canada May Miss $6.7 Billion Carbon Offset Bill by Exiting Kyoto Protocol By Jeremy van Loon Bloomberg
