Environmental Registry Title…

Environmental Registry
Title: Bill 4, Cap and Trade Cancellation Act, 2018
EBR Registry Number: 013-3738
Ministry: Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change

All levels of government – municipal, provincial, and federal must be accountable for climate change and mitigate its impact through policies, programs, and actions. Unfortunately, our lack of action to address climate change will only drive up the associated costs, in comparison with the investment we could have implemented in the first place. Unless we act quickly, we will have to pay an ever increasing price in economic damages that are far in excess of the costs associated with reducing green house gas emissions.

In 2016-2017, the City of Peterborough, County of Peterborough, eight municipalities and two First Nations in the Greater Peterborough Area each set local greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets and adopted local Climate Change Action Plans. The targets range from 15% to 40% GHG emissions reductions by 2031. Through Sustainable Peterborough, a Climate Change Coordinator was hired to implement the Plan and to track our actions and progress.

Tracking historical actions taken place between 2012 and 2016 relate solely to best practices and cost savings as the driver of change. More extensive actions have been taken in 2017-2018 predominantly related to energy conservation, cost savings and greening technology.

The single largest impact to date has been the phasing out of coal from the production of our electricity supply, reducing municipal GHGs by almost 13%. This decision by the previous Provincial government had a significant impact on our targets as well as improvements in local air quality. The Ontario Climate Change Action Plan together with the Provincial Cap and Trade program were well on their way to stimulating a green economy, low carbon energy technologies, and energy efficiency by 2030. If carbon pricing is not the solution, then other forms of economic incentives will be needed to invest in Ontario’s infrastructure and energy transformation that will enable our participation in the emerging green economy, rather than just a consumer of other countries low carbon economy.

The following points need to be addressed in the Climate Change action policy under review by the current provincial government:

1. We believe that it is incredibly important to note that all municipalities face large infrastructure funding gaps and the need to prioritize projects with limited funds leaves some Councils forced to make decisions that may not fulsomely consider climate change impacts or strategies. The province needs to be a leader in this regard and support the difficult decisions that municipal councils face through sustained funding streams to advance actions to mitigate climate change impacts and address our changing climate;
2. In the City of Peterborough, about 40% of our greenhouse gases come from home heating and 30% from transportation, mostly gas cars. We have to reduce these to reach our current target of 30% below 2011 levels by 2031;

3. Canadians produce about 20 tons of greenhouse gases per person per year, compared to about 9.2 tonnes by a person in Norway (another northern county), 6.9 tonnes per person in Europe on average, 7.7 tonnes per person in China, and 1.9 tonnes per person in India;

4. A recent scientific study says that we must totally stop burning fossil fuels (in houses or in cars) within just 10 to 20 years, to avoid runaway climate change that may destroy all life on Earth http://www.pnas.org/content/115/33/8252 (remember to keep in mind that 10 years is just over two electoral terms)
a. To quote from this paper,
“Based on this framework, we argue that social and technological trends and decisions occurring over the next decade or two could significantly influence the trajectory of the Earth System for tens to hundreds of thousands of years and potentially lead to conditions that resemble planetary states that were last seen several millions of years ago, conditions that would be inhospitability to current human societies and to many other contemporary species.”
b. See also comments in https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/06/domino-effect-of-cl…

5. Another recent paper says that if we dramatically reduce greenhouse gases within the next three years, the resulting “grand economic transformation could bring a $26 trillion economic windfall, create 65 million new jobs, and avoid 700,000 early deaths linked to air pollution – by a conservative estimate.” We in Ontario could be leading the way towards these economic benefits, not running and hiding in the past. https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/runaway-climate-change-2030-report_…

6. The only market-based way to reduce greenhouse gases is a price on carbon, either a direct tax or a cap-and-trade system. In both cases, the government can return the income from these to the people, so it is not a “tax grab”. The other alternative is to use the income to provide incentives for better home insulation, buying electric cars, and developing new low-energy technologies;

7. Eliminating the Cap & Trade program has already had a negative impact on the Peterborough economy in the form of cancelled construction of three hydroelectric generating stations and the loss of local contractor jobs supported by home energy retrofit programs;

8. As noted in the City of Peterborough’s Climate Adaptation infographics, there have been approximately 23 days over 30 degrees Celsius in 2018 alone, which is the rate predicted to be seen in 2030. This references the urgency of the need to address climate change now.