Summary Ontario, Canada and…

Summary

Ontario, Canada and World greenhouse gas emissions currently place us all on a path to complete disruption of our current human, social and economic order.

Governments at all levels and in all countries must act to have enough collective impact. No level of government should use inaction by others as an excuse for failing to act.

The Cap and Trade program, which Bill 4 proposes to cancel, was making major impact in reducing Ontario emissions. (Report of The Environmental Commissioner of Ontario 2018 GREENHOUSE GAS PROGRESS REPORT AT https://eco.on.ca/our-reports/climate-change/)

There is a high level of urgency, as noted in the IPCC Report http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/. The Ontario Government must act fast and comprehensively to replace the initiatives in Cap and Trade with actions of their choosing that will still accomplish the required reductions.

To protect our future, cancellation of the Cap and Trade in Ontario must be immediately followed by Government actions which will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by as much or more than those anticipated by the Cap and Trade regulations. It will be irresponsible of the Ontario Government to minimize or avoid taking adequate replacement actions.

Replacement Legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions can be through one or more of the following:
1. Government Incentives to reduce emissions
2. Government Disincentives to producing emissions
3. Government Regulations requiring emission reductions with associated serious penalties for non- compliance

Detailed Comments
• Our Climate has changed and will continue to change for the worse
• Ontario is warming faster than the global average
• There are more extremes of weather which are causing damaging droughts, floods, forest fires and prospect of insect borne infectious disease
• Extreme events have tripled in the past 25 years
• We have not yet seen the full impacts of emissions already made (IPCC A.2 Warming from anthropogenic emissions from the pre-industrial period to the present will persist for centuries to millennia and will continue to cause further long-term changes in the climate system …)
• Ontario is the second largest GHG emitting province in Canada (after Alberta)
• More of Ontario’s GHGs are directly from individuals than from heavy industry
• Thus, emission reductions must target individuals as well as business

Incentives and regulations
• Market based incentives are easier to police than regulations. They require less bureaucracy and more freedom of choice for individuals, businesses and other organizations. However, they will not be enough. Regulations will still be required and must be enforced with serious penalties.
• Despite the Government railing against Cap and Trade as a tax, it was in fact a viable market-based incentive.
• The Government should tax actions that we need to discourage – hence a tax of some form on emissions.
• The Government should subsidize actions they want to encourage at the early stages of change, when economies of scale do not yet exist and costs of making the change exceed the costs of the status quo.
• To ensure the market acts fast enough, the Government must introduce regulations which require action on greenhouse gas reduction with specific short-term targets and penalties for failure to meet them. As individuals are largely held captive by business and governments, it is not realistic to introduce regulations for individual reduction of emissions. Instead, the Government must use incentives and disincentives to change individual behaviour.

Some suggested incentives, disincentives and regulations

All actions need to pay special regard the ability of low-income people to pay increased costs for basic living; this would include rural residents who have long distances to travel to work and no public transit alternatives. Some counterbalancing subsidies and support will be necessary while implementing any disincentives.
Almost all incentives will require government expenditures. Revenue will need to be raised to cover these expenditures through taxes and fees. Cap and Trade was doing this efficiently. Now the Government must find alternative methods.
• Individual incentives
o Actions which reduce transportation emissions
 Subsidized and free transit
 Incentives to switch from gasoline to electric cars
 Building out the electric charging network
o Actions which reduce residential emissions
 Incentives to improve home insulation
 Switching from oil and gas heating to electric (though this needs careful planning with Ontario Hydro re capacity and hydro costs; but it must be planned for if we are to meet GHG reductions).
• Individual disincentives
o Actions which reduce transportation emissions
 Taxes on gasoline
o Actions which reduce residential emissions
 Taxes on home heating oil and gas
• Business & community incentives
o Incentives to increase tree planting and other carbon sinks
o Incentives to implement low emission manufacturing processes

• Regulations
o Building Regulations to require greater home insulation, lower air exchanges per hour for all new builds.
o Planning regulations requiring higher urban densities which will in turn reduce transportation emissions and municipal infrastructure costs
o Passenger and light truck fleet regulations requiring higher fuel efficiency or EV/PHEV/ penetration similar or better than to those in Quebec
• Provincial investments
o Investments in alternatives to natural gas electricity generation facilities
 Investment in electricity storage capacities
 Investments in electricity transmission infrastructure to enable greater imports / exports with Quebec and Manitoba
 Investment in new methods of distributed energy management
o Investments in large scale marketing and media methods to promote GHG reduction initiatives and general public awareness and understanding of the needs and challenges faced by climate change.