I'm submitting these…

I'm submitting these comments on behalf of Oakvillegreen Conservation Association. Oakvillegreen is a non-profit non-partisan environmental group in Oakville. We see the impacts of the climate crisis and are on the front lines of enhancing our community's resilience to climate change with programs to support green infrastructure, natural area protection and restoration, and community education on what we can all do to reduce our impact on the environment.

Cancellation of cap & trade in Ontario has resulted in the elimination of a long list of initiatives that were helping Ontario respond to the climate change. 129 municipalities in Ontario (including Oakville) had received critical funds for social housing upgrades, transit improvements, energy efficiency, cycling infrastructure and community energy planning. The loss of these programs and funds threatens our local municipal climate planning and action. Municipalities will need provincial support, and funding to make buildings more energy efficient, reduce dependence on gasoline for moving people and things, and update our city infrastructure to deal with severe weather. In Ontario, and Halton, our GHG emissions are coming primarily from transportation and buildings. We need to invest in programs to help individuals and businesses reduce GHG emissions and we’ll also see the co-benefits of these reductions in our economic growth, improvements in human health, reduced reliance on fossil fuels, and clean energy business growth.

We are happy to see a commitment from the Ontario government in Bill 4 to establishing targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Ontario, and a climate change plan to achieve these targets.

Ontario immediately needs to get to work to develop a clear climate plan to meet Ontario’s current science-based pollution reduction targets. Those targets set the province on track to be nearly carbon neutral by mid-century, which is what is required if we hope to limit global warming to 1.5. degrees, as agreed to by 195 countries in Paris, and recently noted by the IPCC report as a critical target to avoid catastrophic climate crisis impacts.

We look forward to working together to get Oakville and Ontario moving forward with an effective climate change action plan.