Enviro watchdog: Ontario not living up to pledge

Ontario’s environmental watchdog says the province is backing away from its promises for climate change.

Gord Miller has titled his report A Question of Commitment, because he says the province is ending or scaling back programs to fight greenhouse gas emissions, and will fall short of meeting its targets for 2020 and 2050.

Miller does give the government high marks for phasing out coal-fired electricity generation, but says the associated increase in the use of natural gas means it has surpassed coal as the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the energy sector.

“In the recent past the Ontario government did accomplish significant progress towards meeting their targets, which they attributed to the ambitious coal phase out program, however time moves forward, and while the coal phase out was a worthy accomplishment, now past performance, and no new initiatives to garner such measurable benefits or reductions are being advanced.”

“If we can shift from full fossil fuel intense energy source to some portion of electricity source then we’ll save a large amount of green house gas emission.”

“Decisive action on carbon pricing could reboot the program and provide a rate and elusive win-win-win for the government, economy and the environment.”

Miller says he’d like to see a push toward electrical transportation.

Video: Sharon McCulloch reports: