Canada's most populous province and economic engine will introduce a carbon cap and trade scheme to curb greenhouse gas emissions, Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne said Monday. The system would cap the amount of carbon dioxide gas emitted by each industry, and allow firms to buy and sell unused emissions quotas under an imposed ceiling.
By also joining other jurisdictions under the so-called Western Climate Initiative, the emissions credits could also be traded with companies in Quebec and California.
The west coast province of British Columbia is also a WCI member but has imposed a carbon tax instead of credits.
Wynne's announcement came before she headed to Quebec City to meet with her provincial and territorial counterparts to discuss climate change ahead of a global summit in Paris in December.
French President Francois Hollande has set out an ambitious goal for the meeting: an agreement to limit the rise in global temperatures linked to greenhouse gas emissions to two degrees Celsius from the pre-industrial age.
Canada produces less than two percent of global emissions. They decreased by 5.1 percent while the economy grew 10.6 percent from 2005 to 2012, according to the latest federal figures.
This was largely as a result of the introduction of stricter emissions standards for new cars and trucks, and the phasing out of coal-fired power plants in Ontario.
The world's first large-scale carbon capture and storage was also built into a power plant in the Canadian prairies last year.
With Ontario's introduction of a cap and trade system, more than 75 percent of Canadians will live in a jurisdiction with some form of carbon pricing.
However, Canada will still miss its target for reducing emissions by 17 percent below their 2005 levels by 2020.
Ottawa has not yet announced what future target it hopes to negotiate at the Paris talks.
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