Canada's Environment Minister, Jim Prentice, says that Canada aspires to become part of a stringent North American fuel efficiency standard for the continents highly integrated auto industry.
"At this point in the United States, it would appear as though they are headed toward a 35 mile a gallon standard by 2020 and that would start to come into effect in the 2011 model year," Prentice said. "We've essentially been prepared to go in that same direction. What we're striving for is a North American standard because we know there's only one North American automobile industry."
Prentice made the comments during a visit to Washington, where he was partaking in a series of talks about ensuring clean energy use by both Canada and the U.S.
On a larger scale, Canada is America's largest supplier of energy- though half the oil we send south comes from oil sands which are blamed for releasing massive amounts of greenhouse gasses.
President Obama wants to fight climate change by capping the greenhouse gas emissions of large industries and allowing the players to trade their rights to pollute. This type of agreement is referred to as 'cap and trade',
Ottawa says that since the U.S. appears determined to act, they're prepaed to explore the idea further as well.
photo:Jupiter Images
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"At this point in the United States, it would appear as though they are headed toward a 35 mile a gallon standard by 2020 and that would start to come into effect in the 2011 model year," Prentice said. "We've essentially been prepared to go in that same direction. What we're striving for is a North American standard because we know there's only one North American automobile industry."
Prentice made the comments during a visit to Washington, where he was partaking in a series of talks about ensuring clean energy use by both Canada and the U.S.
On a larger scale, Canada is America's largest supplier of energy- though half the oil we send south comes from oil sands which are blamed for releasing massive amounts of greenhouse gasses.
President Obama wants to fight climate change by capping the greenhouse gas emissions of large industries and allowing the players to trade their rights to pollute. This type of agreement is referred to as 'cap and trade',
Ottawa says that since the U.S. appears determined to act, they're prepaed to explore the idea further as well.
photo:Jupiter Images