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Enviros push libs on new climate target

With a little more than a month left on the clock for the Trudeau government to cough up its promised national climate strategy, a panel of climate activists, academics and bureaucrats met at Friends House in Toronto on January 23 to put forward suggestions.

At the After Paris: What’s Next? event hosted by ClimateFast, boosting renewables, veganism and climate-friendly farming were all up for discussion. 

But for Green Party leader Elizabeth May, the big focus was on setting a new national greenhouse gas reduction target by spring, even if that just means making the most of the old Harper government target of 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

“The problem for the Liberals, if I’m going to be empathetic for a moment, is there was no plan in place for improving on Harper’s weak target,” says May. “[But] the least they should do is take the current 30 per cent and ramp it up five years.”

That way, May suggests, at least we’d have the same end date as the United States, which promised a 28 per cent cut below 2005 levels by 2025. “It’s a strong ask,” May says.

Federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna has promised that any new target would use the old 30 per cent as a “floor.” Enviros had been backing election calls from the Greens and NDP to slash emissions by 26 to 34 per cent below 1990 levels, but since Canada’s so far behind, May says she’s willing to compromise. 

To get there, May says, we need -assurances that Canada is going to get out of coal electricity generation (Ontario has, but Nova Scotia is actually planning to reopen a coal mine this summer) and is moving rapidly into investing in public transit as well as sealing up leaky buildings that are responsible for roughly 30 per cent of all CO2 emissions.

At the city level, Toronto’s director of environment and energy, Jim Baxter, tells the audience the city has already slashed 5 million tonnes of emissions in the last few years, mostly thanks to Ontario’s coal plant closures. But the next 15 million tonnes are going to be tough. “We don’t have any more magic bullets to get us to 2050 [targets]. We need to come up with transformative solutions,” he says, particularly in the city’s carbon-sucking sectors: water/space heating and transportation. City staff have until the end of the year to give council a plan of action to get us there.

May’s parting advice: “Please keep pressure up.”

ecoholic@nowtoronto.com | @ecoholicnation

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