OTTAWA, April 25 (Xinhua) -- Canada plans to stop the rise of greenhouse gas emissions within three to five years and cut the emissions level by 20 percent by 2020, Environment Minister John Baird announced Wednesday.

    "We find ourselves today with one of the worst environmental records among industrialized countries. Now, we need to turn things around," he said.

    "Once greenhouse gases have stopped rising, we will begin to reduce them, so that by 2020, Canada will have cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 150 million tons. This is 20 percent of our totale missions today."

    The above target is part of a new environment plan to be unveiled Thursday. Baird announced some of the content Wednesday after the plan was leaked unintentionally Monday.

    The plan, dubbed Turning the Corner, calls for industries to make in-house reductions, participate in domestic emissions trading, purchase energy offsets and invest in a technology fund.

    It also promises emissions caps on major industrial pollutants, with the aim of cutting air pollution in half by 2015.

    Under the Kyoto Protocol, Canada must reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 6 percent from 1990 levels by 2012. But emissions had actually increased by 26.6 percent by 2006.

    Prime Minister Stephen Harper has argued that the Kyoto targets are unattainable and promised to announce a "Made in Canada" environment plan. His government had introduced a bill in October 2006 to reduce Canada's emissions by 45-65 percent by 2050, based on 2003 emissions. But that bill was widely criticized and did not pass the parliament.