Canada greenhouse gas 'violators' would pay under Liberal plan Fri Mar 16, 8:43 PM ET
OTTAWA (AFP) - Polluters releasing more than their share of the so-called greenhouse gases responsible for global warming would be slapped with fines under a plan unveiled Friday by opposition Liberals.
The plan -- which could come into effect under a Liberal government from January 2008 if the party is returned to power -- would charge companies 20 Canadian dollars (17 US) per tonne of carbon dioxide released in excess of the company's "carbon budget" and jump to 30 dollars (25 US) in 2011.
"We cannot keep using our atmosphere as a dump," Liberal boss Stephane Dion, as he presented the "pay as you pollute" plan.
Companies staying below their quotas could reap rewards by selling their rights to pollute.
If Liberals are able to implement their plan, they would assign each company its carbon budget, a portion of Canada's commitment to meet the Kyoto Protocol target of six percent below 1990 emissions levels.
The Liberal plan targets the largest polluters, especially power generation and the oil and gas industries, such as extractors of oil from Canada's vast deposits of oil sands, which require energy to separate the crude.
Liberals argued it would not be a tax.
"This is the strongest proposal for regulating industrial greenhouse gas pollution made by any political party in Canada," said the Pembina Institute in a statement.
"It sets a new standard against which the (Conservative Stephen) Harper government's soon-to-be-announced regulatory framework must be judged," said Matthew Bramley of Pembina, a Canadian environmental think tank.
The Conservative Harper government has said repeatedly that Canada is not up to meeting the Kyoto commitments, but announced early this year financing for environmental projects.
Dion said just 700 companies emitted 50 percent of Canada's greenhouse gases.
As an incentive to innovate, companies could recover as much as half of their fines to invest in their own projects to lower emissions.
A layer of gases in Earth's upper atmosphere allows rays of sunlight in but does not let heat out, as does the glass in a greenhouse.
While the effect is necessary for life here, the release of carbon and other gases into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution has caused a steady rise in Earth's temperature, which scientists fear could upset weather, sea levels and biological balances.
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