When did Canada’s Environment Minister imply the abandonment of the Kyoto Protocol?

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. (29) 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 has refused to implement it since taking office in 2006. (30) Ahead of the decision, the opposition New Democratic Party accused his government of " standing up for big polluters" at the expense of ordinary Canadians and risking the country’s reputation by abandoning the 1997 treaty.