Industry produces more than 35 per cent of Canada’s total greenhouse gases. In fact, a small handful of industries produce the vast majority of these emissions.

The extractors and refiners of oil and gas are by far the largest single contributors, accounting for 38 per cent of industry emissions. Utilities, cement, iron & steel, chemical, and aluminum industries are also major contributors.

There are a number of practical ways for industry to reduce greenhouse gas emissions:

• Financial incentives to encourage energy efficiency. New technologies and techniques in machinery, heating, lighting and ventilation can significantly cut energy use, production costs, greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution.
• A cap and allowance emissions trading system which would place strict limits or “caps” on the emissions from large industrial sources. Sources emitting less than their cap could sell these “surplus allowances” to others. This system places the costs of emissions on the polluters, not on the public at large.
• Strict limitation of the flexibility mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol, including restriction of international emissions trading to a maximum of 10 per cent of Canada’s required reductions. Such limits are important to ensure that pollution here in Canada is reduced and to avoid “paper” emission reductions overseas.