Federal Environment Minister Peter Kent says Ottawa and the provinces will have to adopt tough new regulations to cut greenhouse gas emissions, but insisted that no new legislation is needed to carry out the Conservative government's environmental plan

"What many people don't realize is that Environment Canada already has the legal tools it needs to execute our plan," Kent said in a speech Thursday to the Economic Club of Canada in Toronto. "It requires no new legislation."

In his first major speech since taking over the environment portfolio last month, Kent rejected calls for new laws to allow Canada to meet its 2020 greenhouse gas reduction target.

But he said all levels of government have so far only managed about a quarter of the reductions that will have to be made if Canada is to cut emissions by 17 per cent from 2005 levels.

"There is a great deal to do," Kent said.

He said the government has made a good start, imposing new regulations on automakers, introducing new standards for passenger vehicle emissions, strengthening energy efficiency standards for buildings, toughening enforcement rules, and signing on to the Copenhagen Accord on climate change.

Also Thursday, Kent announced that the federal government will move ahead with plans to require an average two per cent renewable content in diesel fuel and heating oil, effective July 1.

"We are moving forward with this requirement which will result in further reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and ultimately in cleaner air for all Canadians," Kent said in a news conference at Hamilton's BIOX Corp. plant.

The BIOX plant produces half of all the biodiesel in Canada, made of products such as animal fats and recycled cooking oils, but ships it all to the U.S.

Kent, a former television news anchor and media executive, dismissed criticism of the Conservative government for not doing enough to fight climate change.

"Just weeks into this job, let me say how especially frustrating I find the constant, critical refrain that this government has no environmental plan. Not only do we have one, we are one of the very few countries that does."

He said that acting to reduce industrial sources of greenhouse gas, such as Alberta's oil sands industry, needs to be co-ordinated with the United States.

"Canadians tend to get their hackles up whenever they hear terms like ‘harmonize' or ‘align' in the same sentence as United States," he said. "But however much we may growl about it, when it comes to meaningful work on the environment – and climate change in particular – there is no practical alternative."

On Tuesday, a federal panel urged the government to push ahead with a cap-and-trade system, which would put a price on carbon emissions, to help meet its goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

But Kent said that a North American cap-and-trade system is unlikely in the near term and too costly for Canada to do on its own.