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Missing: A climate change plan for Ontario

September 13, 2018–Ontario Nature Staff

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Climate Change

Do you think Ontario needs an effective climate change plan? We do.

That’s why Ontario Nature has joined over 60 members of the Clean Economy Alliance network to urge the government for an effective climate change plan that helps build the province’s clean economy. You can read our open letter to Minister Rod Phillips below.

If you think Ontario needs a climate change plan, public comment on the repeal of the cap and trade program is now open. Let your voice be heard. Visit: ero.ontario.ca/notice/013-3738

Forest and wetlands, Greenbelt © Tim Hagen

Dear Minister Phillips,

The Clean Economy Alliance (CEA) includes a broad cross-section of Ontario organizations and businesses who support effective action on climate change. We are nurses, builders, architects, teachers, engineers, clean technology innovators, solar panel installers, doctors, financiers, steelworkers, and many more. Our members create jobs, improve our health, and build opportunities for Ontarians in the local and global clean economy.

We are pleased to see that your government has committed to establishing targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Ontario, and a climate change plan to achieve these targets.

It is essential that Ontario’s greenhouse gas reduction targets are science-based, in line with Canada’s international commitments to limit warming to 1.5 degrees, and relevant to slowing the impacts of climate change.

Everyday Ontarians are paying the growing financial and social costs of extreme weather; cleaning up flooded basements, evacuating homes threatened by forest fires, and suffering health impacts from polluted air and extreme heat.

The signatories below, who represent a majority of CEA members, urge you to start building a strong and effective plan immediately, beginning with the consultation of Ontario businesses, scientists, economists, and others who understand the sources of, and solutions to, carbon pollution. In addition, we ask that you commit to a firm timeline for establishing a new climate change plan and emission reduction targets, including opportunities for all Ontarians to participate and give feedback into this plan.

An effective, made-in-Ontario plan must include targeted action to tackle the primary sources of carbon pollution in Ontario including transportation, industry, and buildings. The plan must also include adequate funding for implementation, and transparency mechanisms to make sure Ontarians know how this funding will be spent.

We share your desire to see Ontario’s economy grow and thrive. Helping businesses, municipalities, organizations, workers and individuals transition to clean, lower-cost, energy-efficient solutions can make our province more competitive and healthy, create new jobs in many industries, increase Ontario’s energy independence, and reduce carbon pollution while cutting energy costs.

We look forward to collaborating with you on solutions, and would welcome Clean Economy Alliance participation in your advisory group to develop a new climate plan.

Signatories:

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3 Replies to “Missing: A climate change plan for Ontario”

  1. Noah Gardner says:
    December 5, 2018 at 10:27 pm

    Hi there,
    Kudos to you for this open letter and getting together all the Signatories. I did not find you on time to comment before the PC public consultation site closed, but I did leave a few comments on there as well as email minister Phillips as well as my own local MPP (who does not respond) several times between the cancellation of the green initiatives in June and the closing of the public consultation.
    I can’t express how disappointed I am now that the “Environment Plan” has been released. It only appears to have a single idea of substance, the Ontario Carbon Trust, while doing nothing to replace the plethora of climate change initiatives which were irresponsibly cancelled in the summer. And the document has the nerve to laud the progress Ontario had made towards reducing emissions even as it called the cap-and-trade program ineffective.
    I feel like the whole public consultation process was simply a sham done out of obligation so the government can say they consulted the public. Even in the new Environment plan, the statement: “The following chapter of our environment plan acts as Ontario’s climate change plan, which fulfills our commitment under the Cap and Trade Cancellation Act, 2018.”
    Does this statement sound like it is coming from anyone who is seriously committed to having a climate plan?
    I don’t feel like I can exert much political pressure as an individual, but encourage you to continue, and up the fight against the irresponsible actions of our current provincial government.
    Noah Gardner,
    Norfolk, ON

    Reply
    1. Noah Cole says:
      December 12, 2018 at 9:25 am

      Hi Noah Gardner,

      Thank you for the support and insight!

      Noah Cole, Ontario Nature

      Reply
  2. Elizabeth OLiver-Malone says:
    September 18, 2018 at 1:20 pm

    Bravo- I hope that the new regressive conservative government will create an equal system to replace the effective “cap and trade” system (with Quebec and California) and support clean energy initiatives instead of trying to tear up all the liberal government’s environmentally progressive acts–out of ignorance and spite. So far– this provincial government has acted irrationally and unCanadian.

    Reply

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