The Howard government, along with the United States, agreed to sign the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate at the ASEAN regional forum on 28 July 2005.
[22][23] Despite strong public support, there was still some opposition, particularly by the Canadian Alliance, a precursor to the governing Conservative Party, some business groups,[24] and energy concerns, using arguments similar to those being voiced in the U.S.
In January 2006, a Conservative minority government under Stephen Harper was elected, who previously has expressed opposition to Kyoto, and in particular to the international emission trading.
The federal government has introduced legislation to set mandatory emissions targets for industry, but they will not take effect until 2012, with a benchmark date of 2006 as opposed to Kyoto's 1990.
A private member's bill[30] was put forth by Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, to force the government to "ensure that Canada meets its global climate change obligations under the Kyoto Protocol."
With the support of the Liberals, the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Québécois, and with the current minority situation, the bill passed the House of Commons on 14 February 2007 with a vote of 161 to 113.
[33][34] In May 2007, the Friends of the Earth sued the federal government for failing to meet the Kyoto Protocol obligations to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The obligations were based on a clause in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act that requires Ottawa to "prevent air pollution that violates an international agreement binding on Canada".
[19] At COP 17, the representatives of the Canadian government gave their support to a new international climate change agreement that "includes commitments from all major emitters.
[43] A spokesperson for the island nation of Tuvalu, significantly threatened by rising sea levels, accused Canada of an "act of sabotage" against his country.
[43] Australian government minister Greg Combet, however, defended the decision, saying that it did not mean Canada would not continue to "play its part in global efforts to tackle climate change".
Noting that the timing was particularly bad, because negotiators at the just-concluded Durban conference made what he described as important progress on the issue of the Kyoto Protocol's second commitment period.
According to the Guardian, "Canada's inaction was blamed by some on its desire to protect the lucrative but highly polluting exploitation of tar sands, the second biggest oil reserve in the world.
Claudia Kemfert, an energy professor at the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin said, "For all its support for a clean environment and the Kyoto Protocol, the cabinet decision is very disappointing.
Informed by the Energy White Paper 2003,[67] the bill aims to achieve a mandatory reduction of 60% in the carbon emission from the 1990 level by 2050, with an intermediate target of between 26% and 32% by 2020.
[70] As a result, it now seems highly unlikely that the government will be able to honour its pledge to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 20% from the 1990 level by 2010,[70] unless an immediate and drastic action is taken under after the ratification of the Climate Change Bill.
[73] As well as directly reducing their own greenhouse gas emissions, Norway's idea for carbon neutrality is to finance reforestation in China, a legal provision of the Kyoto protocol.
Yury Osipov noted that during the discussion, scientists had the opinion that the Kyoto Protocol does not have a scientific basis and is not effective for achieving the final goal of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The America's Climate Security Act of 2007, also more commonly referred to in the U.S. as the "Cap and trade Bill", was proposed for greater U.S. alignment with the Kyoto standards and goals.
On 25 July 1997, before the Kyoto Protocol was finalized (although it had been fully negotiated, and a penultimate draft was finished), the US Senate unanimously passed by a 95–0 vote the Byrd–Hagel Resolution (S. Res.
Estimates of the cost of achieving the Kyoto Protocol carbon reduction targets in the United States, as compared by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), predicted losses to GDP of between 1.0% and 4.2% by 2010, reducing to between 0.5% and 2.0% by 2020.
President George W. Bush did not submit the treaty for Senate ratification based on the exemption granted to China (now the world's largest gross emitter of carbon dioxide, although emission is low per capita[94]).
[96] In 2002, the US National Environmental trust labelled carbon intensity, "a bookkeeping trick which allows the administration to do nothing about global warming while unsafe levels of emissions continue to rise.
"[97] The United States has signed the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, a pact that allows those countries to set their goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions individually, but with no enforcement mechanism.
In June 2005, State Department papers showed the administration thanking ExxonMobil executives for the company's "active involvement" in helping to determine climate change policy, including the US stance on Kyoto.
On 27 September 2006, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law the bill AB 32, also known as the Global Warming Solutions Act, establishing a timetable to reduce the state's greenhouse-gas emissions, which rank at 12th-largest in the world, by 25% by the year 2020.
Sustainable development priorities mentioned by non-Annex I Parties included poverty alleviation and access to basic education and health care (p. 6).
However, the U.S. and other Western nations assert that India, along with China, will account for most of the emissions in the coming decades, owing to their rapid industrialization and economic growth.
[109] Although the Minister of State for environment Malik Min Aslam was at first not very receptive, he subsequently convinced the Shoukat Aziz cabinet to ratify the Protocol.
According to a news story by Khan (2009), it was expected that the Protocol would help Pakistan lower dependence on fossil fuels through renewable energy projects.