Canada Proposes Continental Carbon Deal With Obama Administration

Forging a climate-change agreement with the new U. S. administration is a top Canadian priority, the country’s foreign affairs minister says. Speaking a day after Barack Obama was elected president, newly appointed minister Lawrence Cannon said the Canadian government will begin “in the coming weeks” to work on proposals to cut greenhouse gas emissions. One possibility: a North American cap-and-trade system for carbon, taking continentwide the piecemeal approaches now underway in several Canadian provinces and U.S. regions. As part of the arrangement, Canada will seek to protect Alberta’s oil sands projects from any new U.S. climate-change regulations. Obama’s advisers have criticized oil sands production, which creates high emissions of carbon dioxide. An unnamed Canadian official told CBC News that his government has been holding off on carbon-reduction targets until George W. Bush leaves office.