Ottawa lowers its emissions reduction targets

Canada’s emissions reduction targets have never considered particularly ambitious. And yet, Ottawa apparently found them restrictive enough to lower them. Environment Minister Jim Prentice announced on Saturday the federal government was revising its original goal of cutting emissions to 20 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020 to 17 per cent below 2005 levels. According to Prentice, the new target puts Canada’s emissions reduction plans in line with those of the U.S. “The unfulfilled promise of Kyoto we leave behind us," Prentice said. "This is an approach that will work. It will only work if everyone who emits carbon puts forward their reduction obligations and does so in the way Canada has today.”

Vancouver Sun