While in Washington on Monday for talks over the increasing use of clean energy, Canadian Environment Minister Jim Prentice announced that the country was ready and willing to be part of a larger, North American fuel-efficiency standard, alongside the United States. The regulation is necessary in order to drastically reduce pollution by 2020 and still give time to the heavily-integrated auto industry to adapt to the new standards.

“At this point in the United States, it would appear as though they are headed toward a 35 mile a gallon standard by 2020 and that would start to come into effect in the 2011 model year. We've essentially been prepared to go in that same direction (...) what we're striving for is a North American standard because we know there's only one North American automobile industry,” Prentice told the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) in Washington.

The two countries must regulate their emissions together, environment observers believe, mostly because Canada is the single largest supplier of oil for the United States. But the problem is that most of that oil comes from oil sands, and the technological processes needed for the production of sufficient amounts of it from the deposits are very damaging to the environment. They release very high quantities of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming and climate change.

US President Barack Obama has already announced his intention of setting America on a course that should drastically limit the amounts of toxic compounds the automotive industry emits, by installing a “cap and trade” system. Basically, this would allow for companies to trade their rights to pollute. Thus, those that become efficient will receive more money for their efforts, as others that are not that advanced must buy their right to emit more CO2 than they have been alloted.

“The first thing that has to happen, however, is that the United States has to land with their own domestic policy. It's by no means clear how this will emerge from Congress over the course of the next year,” Prentice concluded.