Automakers Pushed for Greenhouse Gas Reductions

  • Cars can contribute greenhouse gases in many different ways. However, California's stricter law on cutting these emissions is starting a trend. (Image courtesy of the EPA)

U.S. automakers are under increasing pressure to reduce
harmful emissions. Now, to meet its obligations to the Kyoto Protocol, Canada says it might partner with several U.S. states to demand cleaner cars. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dustin Dwyer has more:

Transcript

U.S. automakers are under increasing pressure to reduce
harmful emissions. Now, to meet its obligations to the Kyoto Protocol,
Canada says it might partner with several U.S. states to demand cleaner
cars. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dustin Dwyer
has more:


Eight states have already signed on to a law that was first passed in
California. That law calls for automakers to cut greenhouse gas emissions thirty
percent by 2016.


Now, officials in Canada say they may also adopt a similar law. That would
put almost a third of the North American car market under the California
rules. And analysts say it could force a change in how all cars are made.


Stéphane Dion is Canada’s Environment Minister. He says he’s still
working with automakers to get a voluntary reduction in emissions, but he
says time is running out.


“We’ve are talking with them since years, and now it’s time to conclude. And
we hope the conclusion will be an agreement. If it’s not an agreement,
California has shown that something else is possible.”


Automakers have filed a lawsuit in California to block the law. They say it uses
powers reserved for the federal government.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

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