Canada will formally withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, the minister of the environment has said.
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 move, which is legal and was expected, makes it the first nation to pull out of the global treaty.
The protocol, initially adopted in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, is aimed at fighting global warming.
"Kyoto, for Canada, is in the past, and as such we are invoking our legal right to withdraw from Kyoto," Mr Kent said in Toronto.
He said he would be formally advising the United Nations of his country's intention to pull out.
'Impediment'
He said meeting Canada's obligations under Kyoto would cost $13.6bn (10.3bn euros; £8.7bn): "That's $1,600 from every Canadian family - that's the Kyoto cost to Canadians, that was the legacy of an incompetent Liberal government".
He said that despite this cost, greenhouse emissions would continue to rise as two of the world's largest polluters - the US and China - were not covered by the Kyoto agreement.
"We believe that a new agreement that will allow us to generate jobs and economic growth represents the way forward," he said.
Beijing criticised Canada's decision. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said it went "against the efforts of the international community and is regrettable".
Mr 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 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."
He said that though the text of the Durban agreement "provides a loophole for China and India", it represents "the way forward".
Canada's previous Liberal government signed the accord but Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government never embraced it.
Canada declared four years ago that it did not intend to meet its existing Kyoto Protocol commitments and its annual emissions have risen by about a third since 1990.
EIJING Dec 13 (Reuters) - China's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday Canada's decision to quit the Kyoto treaty on greenhouse gas emissions was "regrettable" and called on the country to continue abiding by its commitments on climate change.
On Monday, Canada became the first country to announce it would withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol. Canada, a major energy producer, has long complained that the agreement is unworkable because it excludes many significant emitters from binding action.
China, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases from human activity, has long insisted the Kyoto Protocol remain a foundation of international efforts to curb these emissions causing global warming.
"It is regrettable and flies in the face of the efforts of the international community for Canada to leave the Kyoto Protocol at a time when the Durban meeting, as everyone knows, made important progress by securing a second phase of commitment to the Protocol," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said at a news briefing.
"We also hope that Canada will face up to its due responsibilities and duties, and continue abiding by its commitments, and take a positive, constructive attitude towards participating in international cooperation to respond to climate change."
China's state news agency, Xinhua, denounced as "preposterous" Canada's decision, calling it "an excuse to shirk responsibility".
"Canada's so-called reason for dropping out of the agreement is preposterous and completely an excuse to shirk responsibility," Xinhua said.
The commentary urged Canada to "retract its decision and return to the Kyoto Protocol, so that it can make positive contribution to the cause of global emissions reductions."
At recently concluded climate change negotiations in Durban, South Africa, China won an extension of the protocol until 2017, but also bowed to pressure to launch later talks for a new pact that would legally oblige all the big emitters to take action.
Under Kyoto, poorer countries including China, take voluntary, non-binding steps to curb the growth of emissions while they focus on economic development, and rich nations must sign up to quantitative cuts in emissions.
The United States has refused to join the protocol and argued that China and other big emerging emitters should come under a legally binding framework that does away with the either-or distinction between advanced and developing countries. (Reporting by Chris Buckley and Sui-Lee Wee, Editing by Ken Wills and Paul Tait)
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