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Politics

Gore pans Canadian emissions initiative

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published April 30, 2007

TORONTO - Al Gore condemned Canada's new plan to reduce greenhouse gases, saying it was "a complete and total fraud" because it lacks specifics and gives industry a way to actually increase emissions.

Under the plan announced Thursday, Canada aims to reduce the current level of greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent by 2020.

But the government acknowledged it would not meet its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, which requires 35 industrialized countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. Canada's emissions are now 30 percent above 1990 levels.

Gore said the conservative government's plan did not make clear how Canada would reach its 2020 emissions goal. He also criticized the plan for allowing industries to pollute more if they use emissions-cutting technologies while increasing production.

"In my opinion, it is a complete and total fraud, " Gore said Saturday while in Toronto to present his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. "It is designed to mislead the Canadian people."

Canadian opposition Liberal leader Stephane Dion said Sunday that Gore was right, but Environment Minister John Baird rejected Gore's criticisms.

"The fact is our plan is vastly tougher than any measures introduced by the administration of which the former vice president was a member, " Baird said in a statement. He invited Gore to discuss environmental policies with him.

[Last modified April 30, 2007, 02:24:13]