Canada will match tough new U.S. vehicle emission standards that President Barack Obama said yesterday will force the auto industry to develop more fuel-efficient cars to deal with global warming.
Environment Minister Jim Prentice confirmed that the Canadian government will match the new standards, which Mr. Obama said would also reduce dependence on foreign oil.
“It's very good news because we are now consistently moving down the path towards a single North American standard for fuel efficiency or carbon emissions, depending on how you want to express it,” Mr. Prentice said in a telephone interview.
“It's good for the environment, but in particular I think it's also good for the manufacturers and the consumers. That's where we've all been trying to get to.”
The federal government announced two months ago that it would regulate tailpipe emission standards until the 2011 model year, and pledged to update those numbers on a year-by-year basis. Mr. Prentice said the uncertainty about going beyond that year stemmed from the fact that no one was sure how quickly the U.S. would move.
“[We hope] we will end up with a single, dominant North American standard, which is really what industry needs.”
The U.S. standards would force cars and light trucks to average 35.5 miles to the gallon (6.62 litres/100 km) by 2016. Canada does not express its plan in such fuel efficiency terms and will regulate through the amount of carbon emitted from vehicle tailpipes. The two systems are carefully calibrated so they match, Mr. Prentice said.
Mileage efficiencies vary widely across the industry and even among models. For example, according to a Transport Canada website, depending on the engine size and other factors, Chevrolet's full-size Impala can vary between 10.8 litres/100 km (highway) to 16.3 litres/100 km (highway), with city consumption from four to six litres less.
In the United States, the program would add about $600 to the price of producing a vehicle.
Mr. Prentice said he has had repeated discussions with U.S. officials in the run-up to yesterday's announcement, although he said he didn't have advanced knowledge of the details.
Although the federal Tories have been edging closer in recent years to agreeing to international greenhouse-gas standards, they have argued in the past for made-in-Canada climate change agreements, opposing participation in initiatives like the Kyoto Protocol.
Environmental groups applauded the Canadian decision, but said Canada is not showing leadership on the matter.
“We're being dragged along and in this case, it's welcome,” said Dale Marshall of the David Suzuki Foundation.
Matthew Bramley, of the Pembina Institute, said that adopting the standards will assist Canada in meeting its goal of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by 20 per cent below 2006 levels by 2020.
“It's a significant part of the problem and is important that Canada follows up by meeting national standards in the U.S.,” Mr. Bramley said.
Michael Martin, Canada's lead negotiator on international climate change talks, said the new auto standards will be one part of a “suite of policies” that Canada will be adopting before an international conference in Copenhagen in November, aimed at replacing the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
At a conference in Montreal yesterday, Mr. Martin said negotiators will have to determine how various targets – including many more ambitious than Canada's – can be made to be compatible.
He said Canada will argue that the talks should not focus on the failure of countries to meet their Kyoto targets but on their plans to reduce emissions.
He acknowledged, however, that Canada faces some level of distrust among international partners by falling short of its commitments so dramatically.
With a report from Reuters
