The Targets
| In December 2009, the ECO released its second annual review of the progress made by the Ontario government in achieving its GHG emission reduction targets. Click here for more information on this report, including videos and communications materials. | ||||
Overview
As pointed out in the ECO’s Special Report last year, in order to measure progress towards the government’s target of a 6 per cent reduction in emissions below 1990 levels by 2014, it is imperative that the government provide numbers relating to both real and projected emission reductions associated with specific initiatives. In order to adequately track the government’s progress on GHG reductions towards the 2014 target, the ECO recommended that forecasts (at least by sector if not by initiative) be provided for the years 2008 to 2014.
The ECO recognizes that the impacts of many of the Action Plan initiatives, along with the tracking and reporting processes, are still in the initial stages. However, the provision of such information going forward will be a fundamental component of any credible reduction plan. The ECO is pleased that the government plans to employ a third-party verification process next year and sees this as critical to the success of the Action Plan as it will confirm data quality and transparency. This is especially important given that federal National Inventory Report (NIR) emission figures typically suffer an 18-month time lag. In other words, the final figures for 2014 will likely not be available until April 2016 − this delay speaks to the importance of having a verification process in place that will instil public confidence in the reductions claimed. According to both Figure 6 and Figure B2 of the CCAP Annual Report, initiatives undertaken to date should already have begun to ‘bend the curve’ downwards toward the 2014 target. In the future, therefore, CCAP Annual Reports should include quantitative information with regard to both the initiatives responsible for such reductions and the actual reductions achieved.
Finally, the government will need to provide clarity as to the start date, or time-frame over which any actual reductions have occurred. In other words, a clear baseline must be provided against which each initiative can be measured. Ideally, this information should be represented in a clear chart format so that it is unambiguous to the public when each initiative began, what the projections were for each initiative and the results achieved.
Discussion
Figure 6 in the CCAP Annual Report, entitled ‘Impact of CCAP 2007 Initiatives vs. CCAP Target’, projects future emissions from the most recent data year (2007) to 2014 and on out to 2020. A slightly modified version of this figure has been reproduced below as our Figure 1. The green bars indicate the 2014 target of 165 Mt and the 2020 target of 149 Mt. The figure indicates that the impact of current Action Plan initiatives nominated in 2007 will not get the government to its 2014 target of 165 Mt (6 per cent below the 1990 level), but projects a shortfall in the order of 15 Mt at 2014. Equally significant, the figure shows that the Action Plan will not achieve its 2020 target of 149 Mt (15 per cent below 1990 levels) and is projecting a shortfall of 35 Mt at 2020. It should also be noted that after the phase-out of coal and beginning in 2015, the GHG emissions forecast trends slightly upward.
In total, the impact of the suite of Action Plan initiatives is projected to deliver 34.4 Mt of GHG reductions at 2014 and 43.8 Mt at 2020. What is revealing is that about three-quarters of the 2014 GHG reductions are attributed primarily to OPG’s commitment to phase-out coal use at its four remaining thermal power facilities. The other 13 initiatives in the suite of key GHG reduction initiatives are projected to deliver about 8 Mt by 2014 and about 15 Mt by 2020. As well, a significant portion of each of these totals is attributed to a federal initiative, the Fuel Efficiency Standard, rather than a provincial one. Of the remaining 8 Mt reduction projected for 2014, the CCAP Annual Report attributes approximately 2.24 Mt to this federal initiative. Similarly, of the 15 Mt reduction projected for 2020, 5.45 Mt is projected to come from the Fuel Efficiency Standard.
The CCAP Annual Report’s Figure B1 also shows that the government’s revised Business-As-Usual (BAU) scenario at 2014 and 2020 reflects more recent modelling of the impact on GHGs associated with the recession. This figure indicates BAU GHGs are now forecasted to be 17 Mt lower in 2014 and 22 Mt lower in 2020 compared to BAU values published in last year’s Annual Report.
- Next section: The Sectors
Citing This Article:
Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. 2009. Annual Greenhouse Gas Progress Report 2008/2009: Finding a Vision for Change. Toronto, ON : Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. pp. 13-15
