OTTAWA - Sources say the Conservative government is planning to let companies pay into a technology fund if they can't meet emissions-cutting targets under a proposed federal plan to curb greenhouse pollution.
The fund would support new technologies to reduce greenhouse emissions, such as wind energy, biofuels or the underground disposal of carbon.
Details of the fund are tightly guarded but indications are it will resemble a Liberal climate plan developed by Stephane Dion when he was environment minister.
Like the Liberal plan, the Harper government's strategy is expected to regulate industrial emissions using so-called intensity targets.
Such targets require companies to reduce emissions per unit of production by a certain percentage.
Environmentalists are likely to criticize the Conservative plan, as they did its Liberal precursor, saying that investments in research can't be counted on to cut emissions in the short term.
