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REMARKS - Environmental Commissioner of Ontario Annual Greenhouse Gas Progress Report 2012 - Environmental Communication Options/Huff Strategy

REMARKS - Environmental Commissioner of Ontario Annual Greenhouse Gas Progress Report 2012

Dec 4th, 2012 8:12 AM

REMARKS Gord Miller, Environmental Commissioner of Ontario Annual Greenhouse Gas Progress Report 2012 - A Question of Commitment Legislative Media Studio, Queen’s Park 10:00 a.m., Tuesday, December 4th, 2012 Check Against Delivery Thank you for your attention. “We want our kids to grow up in an America… that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet.” That’s what the President of the United States of America said in his second-term acceptance speech. On the heels of Hurricane Sandy, in what is shaping up to be the hottest year in American history, with a persistent drought that is driving up grain prices to record levels and after the record melting of the summer Arctic ice pack, I believe that statement signals a change in the American position on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Many public figures in Canada and Ontario have always voiced the opinion that we can’t move on GHG reduction until the US does. Well America has cut its GHG emissions. They are about 50% of the way toward meeting their international commitments and now they have an unencumbered President who says he wants to engage the problem. So where does that leave Canada and, by extension, Ontario? In 2007 the Ontario government released Go Green: Ontario’s Action Plan on Climate Change (the “Climate Change Action Plan”), which established three GHG emissions reduction targets: • 6 per cent below 1990 levels by 2014 (to approximately 165 megatonnes or Mt); • 15 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 (to approximately 150 Mt); and • 80 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050 (to approximately 35 Mt). These targets are based on the internationally agreed-upon goal of limiting the increase in global average temperatures to 2˚C above pre-industrial levels. In order to have a reasonable chance of preventing temperatures from exceeding this amount, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommended in 2007 that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere would have to be stabilized at, or below, 450 parts per million. More recent analysis of paleoclimatic data has led James Hansen, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, to conclude that the long-term concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere must be reduced to no more than 350 ppm if global climate conditions, similar to those in which our ecosystems and our civilization have evolved, are to be maintained. Unfortunately, the Ontario action plan and targets have not been adjusted to reflect this new understanding of the climate system. One of my duties is to submit each year a review of the Ontario Government’s Climate Change Action Plan results, in essence a progress report on Ontario activities to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In your hands is my 2012 Annual Greenhouse Gas Progress Report - A Question of Commitment. The title is appropriate because there has been no discernible progress on this file since I last reported on this subject, over a year ago. Clearly the Ontario government’s commitment to responding to GHG emissions and climate change has become questionable. In the recent past, the Ontario government did accomplish significant progress towards meeting the targets. This was largely attributable to the ambitious coal phase-out program. However, time moves forward and while the coal phase-out is a worthy accomplishment, it is now past performance and no new initiatives to garner such measureable benefits or reductions are being advanced. Has the lost year - the period of no progress between this and my 2011 report - been of significant consequence? Not likely, in the short term. But, the current lack of activity and delays will make the task of achieving the stated targets and goals harder and more expensive. Continuing to invest in road serviced low-density development, and failing to invest in improving the energy efficiency of our existing buildings, commits us to increasing structural greenhouse gas emissions for decades to come. You might ask, with so little relevant activity, why is my 2012 report as long as it is? The report contains basic information on GHG emissions for six sectors: electricity, transportation, industry, buildings, agriculture and waste. This was necessary because in order for there to be a public discussion about action on GHGs, there needs to be public information on our present situation. That information and analysis should come from the government agency responsible for the Climate Change Action Plan, but it has not. The less than adequate government report of April 2011 has been followed this year by an even less informative report released just a few days ago. This has made my job of reporting year-over-year comparisons, difficult and problematic at best. A significant shortcoming of the government’s current approach has been a complete lack of engagement around the question of carbon pricing. If only a single thing is done in the next year by the government on the climate change file, it should be to substantively engage on this topic. As my report illustrates, other jurisdictions are demonstrating that carbon pricing can be adopted without hurting economic growth, while delivering the benefit of lowered GHG emissions. Decisive action on carbon pricing could reboot the program and provide a rare and elusive win-win-win for the government, economy and the environment. However, at this point, with the paucity of information before me, I can only conclude that the Climate Change Action Plan is no longer a priority of this government. Without the engagement of the Premier’s Office and Cabinet, the targets it set for itself five years ago for 2014, 2020 and 2050 will not be achieved. Is the lack of action in the recent past fatal? Of course not. If the province is serious about attending to GHG emissions and responding to climate change, then the decisive action required can and must start now.