Ontario Greens will introduce transformative climate legislation

October 25, 2021

QUEEN’S PARK — This morning, Ontario Greens Leader Mike Schreiner was joined by Ontario Greens Deputy Leader and former Environmental Commissioner for Ontario Dianne Saxe to introduce his Private Member’s Bill, the Carbon Budget Accountability Act.

“We are in a climate emergency,” Schreiner said. “The science and evidence is clear: we need to rapidly and drastically reduce climate pollution to avoid climate disaster.”

If passed, the Bill will enact a Zero Carbon Law that sets a Fair Share Carbon Budget and will cut Ontario’s climate pollution in half by 2030 and to net-zero every year from 2045.

“We need urgent climate action now,” Schreiner stressed. “The effects of the climate emergency get more severe with every day of inaction. Heat waves get more deadly, wildfires get more intense, floods get more frequent and severe, and extreme storms get more costly.

“And every day of inaction is a missed opportunity to invest in the jobs and huge potential of the green economy.”

The Carbon Budget Accountability Act would require the Premier and Minister of Environment, Conservation and Parks to ensure Ontario’s total net emissions of greenhouse gases does not exceed the specified carbon budget.

“We’re heading directly towards climate chaos if we don’t change course,” warned Ontario Green Deputy Leader and former Environmental Commissioner for Ontario Dianne Saxe. “We need to crush climate pollution and we need to start now.

Saxe noted that the Ford government is polluting the climate at an unsustainable and devastating rate. “It’s harming nature, it’s harming our health, and it’s harming our future.”

While other regions around the world are embracing the green economy and reducing emissions, Ontario pollutes the climate even more now than it did in 2017.

“Policies like the Carbon Budget are what it’s going to take to avoid climate chaos and create a better life,” Saxe highlighted. “Not incremental half measures like the other opposition parties are proposing.”

“If the other parties are at all serious about tackling the climate emergency, they’ll vote in support of this bill.”

Schreiner will table and debate the bill this week.

-30-