The Tory climate-change plan that was officially unveiled on Thursday has drawn fire from environmental groups and mixed reaction from industry leaders.
The climate-change plan, unveiled by Environment Minister John Baird, indicated Kyoto protocol targets will be met by 2025. Other highlights of the announcement include:
- An aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020
- A target to cut air pollution by 50 per cent by 2015.
- A short-term emission reduction target of 18 per cent for existing industry by 2010, based on 2006 emission levels. Industry will have to make these reductions themselves or through contributing to a technology fund.
"Our plan strikes a balance between the perfection that some environmentalists might be seeking and the status quo that some in industry seek to protect,'' said Baird.
However both environmentalists and industry leaders have expressed concerns about the report.
Avrim Lazar of the Forest Products Association of Canada told CTV the requirements will be tough for many industries to meet and expressed concern over the technology fund Baird announced.
"It's in effect a tax. We would prefer just to see a simple cap and trade system rather than the government taking our money and giving it back to us to help with technology," Lazar told Â鶹´«Ã½net. "We would just like to see a clear regulation with a cap that allows us to find the most economically most viable solution through cap and trade."
Lazar, however, welcomed the establishment of clear targets for industry. But Mark Nantais, president of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association, was confused and said it was too soon for him to determine the overall impact on the automotive industry.
"The whole plan is much too vague for that -- to make any sort of determination,'' Nantais told the Canadian Press. "We're going to have to get a better understanding of what they really want here.''
The federal measures call for a mandatory fuel-efficiency standard for the auto industry to take effect beginning with the 2011 model year. However, the standard remains undetermined.
Buzz Hargrove, president of the Canadian Auto Workers union, had expressed some concern over job loss in the automobile industry before the announcement of the climate change report, but had a positive response to Baird's announcement.
"I believe Mr. Baird tried incredibly hard to find balance between the economy, the concern working people have for their jobs and the environmental concerns that concern every Canadian," Hargrove told CTV's Mike Duffy Live. "I think he took a major step forward today that will ideal a summary of environmental concerns but will not throw tens of thousands of Canadians out of work."
However environmentalists were not impressed with the Tory plan.
Julia Langley of the World Wildlife Fund believes the figures Baird used in the report are deceiving in regard to the amount of environmental progress they will yield.
"Let's take apart this data. You've been spun a serious line here. This is fun with numbers," Langley told Â鶹´«Ã½net. "The way they have put it - (a) 20 per cent reduction by 2020 -- they're counting according to a baseline that nobody uses."
Langley criticized the fact that the emission reduction targets will still be above 1990 levels in 2020 and criticized that the figures referred to emissions intensity.
"So in other words we're going to ask industry to reduce their intensity, not their emissions, just how fast they pollute. So they'll slow that down and what it is -- is business as usual."
"This means that pollution can go up as long as the intensity goes down,'' said Aaron Freeman of Environmental Defence told the Canadian Press. "Well the environment doesn't care about intensity, it cares about absolute amounts of pollution.''
"We were told this was their green plan," said John Bennett of Climate for Change. "What do we get? A few vague numbers, no hard targets, no action whatsoever.''
Other announcements in the climate change plan announcement by Baird confirmed that Canadians would have to absorb higher prices for cars, appliances and fuel to help reduce air pollution and greenhouse gases.
With a report from CTV's Chris Epp, Rosemary Thompson and files from The Canadian Press
