Environment Minister John Baird announced tough new measures against industrial polluters Monday, including mandatory carbon-capture technology for Alberta oilsands projects starting their operations in 2012.
"We're going to regulate 17 big sectors in the Canadian industrial economy and require each of them to reduce their emissions," Baird told CTV's Mike Duffy Live. "First it will be on an intensity basis by 18 per cent over the next three years, and then a constant two-per-cent improvement."
Government officials say those cuts would mean a 20 per cent reduction in greenhouse gases from 2006 levels by 2020. However, countries that follow the Kyoto accord use 1990 levels to measure their reductions.
Details of the plan can be read
In four years, all new oilsands projects and coal-fired plants would need to capture the bulk of their carbon dioxide emissions and store them deep underground.
Pierre Alvarez, of the Canadian Petroleum Producers Association, said the new rules would be too costly and unfair.
"When you get to the kind of capture and storage the federal government is talking about here, this would be a quantum leap ahead of what's going on anywhere else in the world," he told Â鶹´«Ã½.
Stelmach critical of plan
Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach has proposed similar carbon-capture technology rules, but said Monday he would not force companies to follow his provincial regulations and distanced himself from Baird's federal plan.
"The resources are owned by all Albertans and I've made that point very clear," he said. "I'm sure the prime minister is aware of it, but I'll be constantly reminding him."
Charlie Fischer, CEO of the Canada-based energy company Nexen, Inc., said capturing and storing carbon emissions will cost the industry billions of dollars.
"The issue of carbon sequestration is that it's very expensive and there is no infrastructure," he said.
The proposed federal measures also include creating a carbon emissions trading market, to provide further incentives for reducing greenhouse gas levels.
Baird said the regulations would also effectively ban the construction of new dirty coal plants starting in 2012.
"We're never going to get to our reduction targets if we continue to build dirty coal plants," said Baird. "So, we've effectively ended the era of dirty coal plants in terms of new production, and we think this will be an integral part of getting to our absolute 20-per-cent reduction."
Nova Scotia focused on coal
Coal-fired plants are the only source of electricity in Nova Scotia, while European investors are currently looking to re-open the Donkin coal project in Cape Breton.
Baird acknowledged that the regulations would be difficult to follow in the Maritimes province.
"There is a lot of existing coal plants and we're going to hit them with tough regulations," he said. "But we want to act to ensure that we don't build any new plants that can't use the best available technology."
He acknowledged that the regulations would have a negative effect on the Canadian economy, but there would be "a huge effect if we do nothing."
Opposition leaders said Monday that the regulations do not make firm cuts to overall emissions and slammed the government for failing to go far enough.
"That targets are far too weak and the means to reach those targets are far too weak," Liberal Leader Stephane Dion told reporters.
NDP Leader Jack Layton went even further, calling the measures a "licence to pollute."
Liberal environment critic David McGuinty said there's a loophole in the new rules that would allow polluters to pay into a green technology fund and avoid actually using the technology.
"Large emitters can pay off into a technology fund -- $15 a tonne for carbon to get out of the obligation to use carbon capture sequestration," he said.
With a report by CTV's Robert Fife in Ottawa
