The Canadian government is under attack by environmentalists after it exempted car manufacturers from its plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:
Transcript
The Canadian government is under attack by environmentalists after it exempted car
manufacturers from its plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:
Opponents say the government granted the exemption because the car assembly plants are located
in Ontario.
The province is a stronghold of support for the leading Liberal party.
But federal officials say the auto plants were exempted because their emissions are already low.
Many industries are required to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions under the newly signed
Kyoto Protocol on climate change.
John Bennett of the Sierra Club agrees that the auto plants are relatively small polluters.
But he’s concerned that the feds lost some leverage as they try to convince automakers to create
more fuel efficient cars.
“It was a short term political tactic, but in the long term, it might mean we won’t get the kinds of
fuel efficiency improvements in cars that are absolutely essential if we’re going to meet the Kyoto
target and go beyond it.”
Thus far, the auto industry is resistant to building more efficient vehicles.
For The Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.