Canada is invoking its legal right to formally withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol, thus becoming the first country to leave the pact on cutting carbon emissions.

"Kyoto is not the path forward for a global solution to climate change," Canada's Environment Minister Peter Kent stated on Monday, explaining that the protocol could not work since the world's two largest greenhouse gas emitters, the US and China, were not covered by it.

"This decision formalizes what we've said since 2006 — that we will not implement the Kyoto Protocol," Kent declared.

He gave no details on when exactly his country would pull out of the Kyoto Protocol, but revealed Canada would be subject to enormous financial penalties under the terms of the treaty unless it withdrew.

Canada signed Kyoto in the late 1990s, but neither the current Conservative government nor their Liberal predecessors met targets, The Canadian Press reminds.

Canada, together with Japan and Russia, had already announced that it would not accept new Kyoto commitments.