The Harper government unveiled measures on Monday that would force new oilsands projects to capture and store greenhouse gas emissions and ban construction of new dirty coal plants beginning in 2012.

The rules are part of Environment Minister John Baird's plan that was introduced last April to regulate key manufacturers and producers of chemicals, steel and other industrial materials.

"Our regulations will apply to all big industry," Baird said in a news release. "From the oil industry to chemical companies; from smelters to pulp and paper mills — all big industry will have to do their part."

Last April, the government made a commitment to cut emissions to 20 per cent below 2006 levels by 2020. Baird said if the government doesn't force companies to capture and store the pollutants, Canada wouldn't meet its targets, the Globe and Mail reported Monday.

The plan already includes establishing a market price for carbon and setting up a carbon emissions trading market, including a carbon offset system, to provide incentives for Canadians to reduce their greenhouse gases.

The plan will now also include setting a target that will effectively require oilsands projects starting up in 2012 to implement carbon capture and storage and banning the construction of new dirty coal plants starting in 2012 across Canada.

Baird also elaborated on a previous announcement that requires companies to reduce emissions 18 per cent by 2010 for every unit of production by specifying how the targets will apply to each industry sector, how the offsets and trading systems will work and how credits will be provided to companies that acted early to cut emissions.

Critics have panned the 18-per-cent reduction measure, however, because it doesn't require companies to cut overall output, the Globe reported.

An oilsands plant, for example, will be forced to cut greenhouse gas production per barrel of oil, but it will still be allowed to increase the number of barrels of oil it produces, the Globe said.

The government said it consulted with environmental groups, industry and other interested parties over the past year to refine and improve the regulatory approach. Alberta's oilsands are considered the largest single source of Canada's greenhouse gases.

The Alberta government said Monday it supported Ottawa's "co-operative approach" to greenhouse gas reduction and that it and other provinces have insisted that the federal government's plan should align with any existing provincial approach.

Under Alberta’s strategy, the province will set up a government-industry council to report back by fall on how to implement carbon capture and storage.

In Ottawa, politicians panned the new measures. NDP Leader Jack Layton said the plan was "a licence to pollute."

Green party Leader Elizabeth May criticized the capturing techniques as expensive and unproven

"Right now, it's not cost-effective and there are far more cost-effective ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions — improving the efficiency with which we use energy and shifting to other energy sources beyond coal and oil," she said at a news conference.

The government has admitted that the technology likely won't be up and running until 2018.

"You can't flip a switch. This will be the most massive environmental infrastructure projects ever undertaken in Canadian history," Baird said Monday on Parliament Hill.

But Baird told the Globe the capture techniques, such as pumping emissions underground, are proven and go beyond research and development.

The actual regulations, which will lay out specific targets for each industry and the penalties they face if they don't meet them, won't be finished now until the fall. They are expected to come into effect Jan. 1, 2010.