Holding Ontario Accountable

Ontario and British Columbia are best positioned among the Canada provinces to implement aggressive climate change targets and policies that could set a bar and influence federal climate change policy; provincial actions could lead Canada beyond the barriers created by the federal government's failure to act on the Kyoto Accord.

Ontario announced fairly ambitious GHG reduction targets in June 2007 of 6% below 1990 levels by 2014, 15% below 1990 levels by 2020, and 80% below 1990 by 2050.

Ontario has gone so far as to produce a wedge analysis that suggests a likely allocation of GHG reductions by sector. Unfortunately, there is neither an adequate plan nor a set of clear policies to achieve these targets, and important elements — such as vehicle emission standards — are missing.

However, the fact that Ontario has identified these wedges provides a solid framework for leveraging real reductions and ensuring accountability. We can hold the Ontario government accountable to their targets, or exceed these, by providing a detailed but feasible technical and policy roadmap that is currently absent from their climate plan.

In additional to its work on provincial climate change issues, the Pembina Institute is one of Canada's foremost organizations working on federal climate change issues.