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OTTAWA -  Just as Environment Minister John Baird was bragging that Canada now has one of the "most aggressive" anti-climate change plans in the world, Denmark's energy minister was inadvertently helping to punch holes in the claim.

Flemming Hansen, on a two-day trip to Canada, was explaining to an audience at Carleton University on Thursday how renewable sources would account for 30 per cent of Danish energy consumption by 2025. (Canada's is currently 17 per cent).

The oil-exporting country has long made consumers and industry pay hefty carbon taxes on gasoline and cars. Its energy consumption has been reduced to 1975 levels even as its economy has continued to grow.

Because of drastic measures taken over the last decade, the country is struggling to find additional ways to cut emissions and meet its Kyoto commitment - but it still believes it'll come in somewhere around 3 per cent over the target.

That's considerably more aggressive than Baird's plan, under which Canada's greenhouse gas emissions are supposed to "stabilize" from last year's levels by 2010 - 38 per cent higher than the Kyoto commitment.

Still, Baird boasted Thursday: "We are serving notice that beginning today, industry will need to make real reductions. After years of inaction, Canada now has one of the most aggressive plans to tackle greenhouse gases and air pollution in the world."

Baird's assertion that Canada is among the best in the pack was not backed up by any government paperwork and questions put to Environment Canada bureaucrats were not answered Friday. For example, are we being compared to all countries, or just those in the industrialized world?

A spokesman for Baird said that the claim was based on Canada's "actual carbon output" and the projected impact of the newly promised reductions on a "national basis . . . over the course of the next five years."

Yet, much of the reductions in Baird's plan don't occur in the first five years. For instance:

• Major industrial emitters will not have to start cutting their emissions until 2010.
• In 2010, polluters will be able to meet 80 per cent of their reduction obligations either by buying credits from a technology research fund or helping to fund green projects internationally, leaving only a fraction devoted to actual reductions. If a company's production booms, it could actually increase carbon output.
• Some polluters who just started operations won't have to make any reductions at all in the next five years.
• There are no taxes directed at Canadians to change consumption patterns.
• A promise to regulate better efficiencies in the automobile industry will kick in for model year 2011. But because the commitment hinges on the negotiation on a new North American standard, there is no guarantee any changes will actually occur.

Emilie Moorhouse of the Sierra Club says it's "dishonest" for the government to claim it has among the toughest rules in the world.

"There are significant loopholes, it's a very weak target, and frankly there is no evidence that emissions will start to stabilize in 2012, and no evidence we will be able to reduce 150 megatonnes by 2020," said Moorhouse.

"There is no way Canada will be an environmental leader with this and we will remain a laggard for many years to come," said Moorhouse.

Meanwhile, European countries are moving well beyond Kyoto, aiming for an additional 20 per cent reduction in emissions below 1990 levels by 2020. Australia, which never signed the Kyoto treaty, nevertheless says it will be just slightly over the Kyoto target by 2010.

Here are some examples of what other countries have reported to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change:

• Japan: Expects to decrease greenhouse gas emissions by 0.5 per cent lower than its Kyoto target by 2010. Introduced variety of measures to promote public transport and vehicle efficiency. Also promotes nuclear energy and other sources such as biomass and fuel cells.
• United Kingdom: Promises to blow past Kyoto target by an additional 8 per cent by 2010. System of taxes and levies to force compliance by industry. Ten per cent of energy use to come from renewables by 2010.
• Norway: One of the highest vehicle purchase taxes in the world and carbon taxes on gas. Oil extraction and consumption subject to tax. One of the most important carbon storage projects in the world. Nonetheless, is projecting it will overshoot Kyoto by 22 per cent in 2010 because of its oil industry.
• France: Expects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2010. Second-largest producer of nuclear power. European leader in renewable energy, including hydro and biomass.