Ontario to miss emissions reduction goal by an even wider gap than it admits: auditor

Emissions flow from a factory's smokestacks on a cold winter day in Toronto, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston

Ontario’s environment ministry says it will miss its 2030 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target but the auditor general says even that admission of failure is downplayed.

Auditor general Shelley Spence writes in a report Wednesday that the government has projected that it will miss its 2030 emissions reduction target by 3.5 megatonnes, but in reality it will likely be an even wider margin.

Environment Minister Todd McCarthy said targets are not as important as results.

“We are continuing to meet our commitment to at least try to meet our commitment for the 2030 target,” he said at a press conference.

“But targets are not outcomes. We believe in achievable outcomes, not unrealistic objectives.”

To meet the target now, the province would have to do the equivalent of taking half of all fossil-fuelled passenger vehicles off Ontario’s roads in five years, Spence found.

“Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is important for the future of our province,” Spence said at a press conference.

“The cost of not reducing emissions far outweighs the cost of reduction. We’re already seeing the effects of climate change and the millions of dollars it is costing.”

The Ministry of Environment disagreed with three of the auditor’s four recommendations on this file – that they propose longer-term targets beyond 2030 as 10 other provinces and territories have, that they consult the public on an updated climate change plan and that they publicly report progress annually.

McCarthy said the government is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions but not if it would jeopardize affordability.

“We have consensus in our government when it comes to protecting the environment, being strong stewards of the environment, but we have a consensus around balance as well,” he said.

“We can’t put people’s jobs at risk. We cannot put families’ financial, household budgets at risk by going off in a direction based on some target that’s not achievable.”

The ministry concluded in January that it would fail to meet its 2030 target but never communicated that publicly, Spence said. In that projection, the province overestimated reductions to be achieved from government initiatives in every sector, she found.

The projection includes federal policies that have ended, including the consumer carbon tax and electric vehicle subsidies, and assumes the province is on track to meet its targets for reducing and diverting organic waste from landfills despite making “little to no progress” on that, Spence found.

The government’s numbers also do not factor in the impacts of its car-friendly policies, including cutting the gas tax and removing road tolls, which could encourage more gas-powered vehicle use, she said.

Spence also said the government’s projection estimates that emissions will decrease slightly from the agricultural sector but there aren’t any mandatory initiatives in place to actually reverse rising emissions.

Not only is the government failing to meet its emission reductions targets, but it is failing to meet basic legislated requirements to prepare a climate change plan and publicly report on progress, Spence found.

The ministry hasn’t released a new report since 2021 and an update posted on its website in 2022 just repeated the 2021 information, she said. Nor has the government ever moved its 2018 plan to reduce emissions past the draft phase, Spence found. It has never been approved by cabinet.

Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said this government does not prioritize the environment.

“I used to say that the government has a made-to-fail climate plan,” he said. “Now they have no damn plan at all.”

Ontario’s greenhouse gas emissions did decrease by 22 per cent between 2005 and 2023, but that was largely due to the previous government shuttering coal-fired electricity generation and the reductions in industrial activity during the 2008 recession and COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 1, 2025.