Government says it's on climate change track with U.S., critics say Canada not on Obama's radar

The Canadian government says it is working with the U.S. to harmonize its environmental policies, but environmental groups say Canada is nowhere close to being on U.S. President Barack Obama's radar when it comes to fighting climate change.

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John Bennett, executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada, said the government's decision to "synchronize" its climate change policies with the United States "is the best excuse for not doing anything that they've come up with."

Mr. Bennett said that it is not reasonable to adopt a U.S. plan.

"Yes our economies are integrated, but our emissions profiles are fundamentally different," he said, noting that more than half of the U.S.'s emissions come from coal-fire power plants whereas Canada only has a "handful" of coal plants. "If we try to synchronize with them, we're likely to damage our economy as well as not succeeding in reducing emissions because they'll be able to do it in a much different way than we are."

Further, Mr. Bennett said, although the U.S. has a plan, it has not been implemented yet, therefore Canada is "synchronizing our plan with something that doesn't exist."