The Province of Ontario

Ontario

Population: 12.2 million (2006)
GHG Emissions: 190 MtCO₂e (2006)

On June 18, 2007, Ontario announced a set of ambitious but realistic greenhouse targets:

The province has also established electricity-related targets that include:

Ontario's 2006 Building Code introduced energy-efficiency requirements that, over the next seven years, will save enough energy to power 380,000 homes and will reduce greenhouse gas emissions the equivalent of taking 250,000 cars off the road.
Ontario's CAD$20 million (US$16 million) Municipal Eco Challenge Fund includes CAD$14 million (US$11 million) to make municipal buildings more energy efficient. The fund's remaining CAD$6 million (US$4.8 million) is providing municipalities with training, tools and technical support, in collaboration with the Association of Municipalities of Ontario and the Canada Green Building Council. The grant program was announced in conjunction with a CAD$200 million (US$162 million) loan program for municipal projects that reduce GHG emissions.
Banning the sale of inefficient light bulbs by 2012 . If passed, new regulatory efficiency standards for light bulbs will be on average about 40 per cent higher than today's standard units.
Ontario is investing CAD$122 million (US$99 million) in Ontario's Home Energy Audit and Retrofit Program which provides up to CAD$5,000 (US$4,000) to help homeowners invest in qualified home energy improvements and related equipment.
Ontario is providing sales tax exemptions on eligible EnergyStar® household appliances and light bulbs.

Ontarios Renewable Energy Standard Offer Program (RESOP) makes it easier and more cost-effective for businesses and entrepreneurs to sell renewable power to the grid by setting a fixed price for small generation projects that use renewable energy. This includes contracts for more than 500 MW of solar power, one of the largest commitments in North America.
In 2003, there were only 10 wind turbines in operation in Ontario, with a total capacity of 15 MW. By the fall of 2009, it is expected that there will be 670 turbines operating in Ontario, with a total potential output of more than 1,100 MW.
Ontario is also adding more clean energy sources, with a standard offer for new, natural gas-fired combined-cycle and for co-generation (combined heat and power electricity production) power. The government is removing other barriers that prevent more widespread use of co-generation.

By 2010, the government will have provided over CAD$1.6 billion (US$1.3 billion) in gasoline tax funding to Ontario municipalities for their local transit priorities. This program gives municipalities a dependable and stable source of financing for their public transit initiatives.
MoveOntario 2020 is a rapid transit action plan for the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (one of the largest urban areas in Canada). Through MoveOntario 2020, the province will provide CAD$11.5-billion (US$9.3 billion) of a total CAD$17.5-billion (US$14 billion) in funding for 902 kilometres of new or improved rapid transit the largest public transit initiative in the provinces history.
Ontario is committed to developing a low carbon fuel standard that will require carbon emissions from transportation fuels to decrease 10% by 2020 the equivalent of removing 700,000 cars from the roads.

Implementing Ontarios Far North Planning Initiative which will protect at least 225,000 square kilometres of the Far North Boreal region, and give priority protection to key ecological features such as endangered species habitat. Ontario will also partner with Manitoba to establish and protect an Inter-provincial Wilderness Area covering more than 94,000 square kilometres.
In 2007, the government launched a three-year, CAD$9-million (US$7.3 million) program to assist funding 20 to 25 agriculture and agri-food biogas systems that convert agriculture and food-based products and by-products into renewable energy. The programs popularity led to additional funding of CAD$2 million (US$1.6 million) during the first quarter of 2008. A biogas system that uses manure from 250 cows could result in 400 fewer tonnes of greenhouse gases and 550 additional megawatt-hours of power production every year.
The government will work with private landowners and community groups to plant 50 million trees on private and public lands in southern Ontario by 2020. Planting 50 million trees on 25,000 hectares (nearly 62,000 acres) of private and public land by 2020 will remove from the atmosphere by 2054 about 3.8 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide. Ontario will also plant 100,000 trees in cities and urban areas by 2010.

The government filed a regulation to phase-in new requirements for methane collection and capture in local landfills, the source of 3 per cent of Ontarios human-made greenhouse gas emissions in 2006. The landfill owners can either burn off the methane, reducing its global warming potential by 95 per cent, or use it to generate electricity to sell to the grid. When these new rules are combined with the systems already in place, Ontario landfills will be reducing GHG emissions by over four million tonnes per year.

The government launched, in 2008, the CAD$1.15 billion (US$930 million) Next Generation of Jobs Fund geared towards innovation, including the development and commercial sale of clean cars, clean fuels and clean technologies in Ontario.
Because coal-fired electricity is one of the provinces most significant sources of GHG emissions, Ontario will cease to burn coal at its four remaining coal-fired generating stations by the end of 2014. Ontario was the first jurisdiction in North America with a regulation in place to eliminate coal-fired power. Coal replacement represents a reduction in GHG emissions of up to 30 megatonnes - the single largest GHG reduction initiative in Canada.

Ontario joined the Western Climate Initiative (WCI) in the summer of 2008. The WCI is a collaboration of seven U.S. governors and four Canadian Premiers with the objective of reducing GHG emissions 15 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020 and developing multi-sector, market-based mechanisms including a regional cap and trade program to achieve that goal.
Ontario signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Quebec on June 2, 2008 to collaborate on a regional cap-and-trade system for GHGs that could be implemented as early as January 1, 2010. The two provinces will work together to make their approach compatible with other cap-and-trade systems that are emerging in North America and around the world.
Ontario also participates as an observer in other GHG cap-and-trade initiatives including the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) and Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord (MGA). RGGI is a state-level strategic partnership based in the U.S., with a mandate to reduce GHGs from the electricity sector. MGA is a state and provincial initiative to develop a regional strategy to achieve energy security and reduce GHG emissions.