Carbon Offsets Daily

, Quebec and Ontario have signed a cap-and-trade deal between the two provinces.

Quebec and Ontario governments are hoping to have the joint trading plan in place by the year 2010, .The goal of the program is to reduce carbon dioxide emission to levels near those provided by the .

Environment Minister John Baird the plan is “meaningless without an enforcement component to punish polluters”. Baird encouraged companies to instead work to cut emission to 20% below 2006 levels by the year 2020, or be penalized.

Despite opposition, Premier Jean Charest and Premier Dalton McGuinty plan to go ahead with their carbon trading plan for Quebec and Ontario. Charest and McGuinty claim federal plans to reduce carbon emission by a percent is unrealistic, and insist that the 2006 base year is “unambitious”.