Ontario to scrap legal requirement to set and update climate target

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

The Ontario government is set to scrap requirements that it set an emissions target and update its climate plan, wiping out key measures for holding the government to account on efforts to fight global warming. 

A plan to repeal parts of the 2018 Cap and Trade Cancellation Act was buried at the end of Thursday’s fall economic statement. The government aims to get rid of sections requiring the province to establish an emissions reduction target, prepare a climate plan and issue progress reports. 

The move comes weeks after a scathing auditor general’s report found the province is set to miss its target by an even wider margin than it had previously reported, and weeks before its lawyers are scheduled to defend the plan in court. 

Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy said the government would continue reducing greenhouse gas emissions. 

“We’re not going to relent, but we’re going to focus on outcomes and not targets,” he said.  

The timing of the proposal fuelled speculation the government was trying to dismantle parts of the legislation that opened Ontario’s climate plan up to constitutional scrutiny.

“They’re about to be potentially held to account for not doing enough on climate change by having an insufficient and inadequate target,” said Nathalie Chalifour, a climate law expert and University of Ottawa professor.

“And instead of going before the court and trying to defend their target, they’ve essentially removed it.” 

A lawyer for seven young climate advocates challenging the province’s existing climate plan said the latest development shows Premier Doug Ford’s government is “further retreating from the climate fight.” 

Fraser Thomson said he doesn’t believe Thursday’s proposal changes the “underlying facts” of the group’s constitutional case, which is scheduled to be back before a judge next month. 

“This government is dangerously fuelling the climate crisis. We know that the climate crisis will cause an unprecedented threat to our Charter-protected rights,” said Thomson, a lawyer with Ecojustice. 

The auditor general’s report released in October found the government was failing to meet its basic requirements to prepare a plan and publicly report on its progress. 

The environment minister had not released a new report since 2021, and a 2022 update posted on a government website just repeated the previous year’s information, the auditor found. 

A spokesperson for the environment minister did not directly address questions about why the government was pursuing the change, instead citing in a written response Thursday the province’s recent investments in transit expansion, energy efficiency and nuclear power. 

The sections of law that the government is now proposing to strike have been key to the young climate advocates’ years-long court challenge.

Shortly after taking power in 2018, Ford’s government scrapped the province’s existing cap-and-trade system and downwardly revised its emissions target. 

The Progressive Conservatives’ goal to reach emissions 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 replaced the Liberal-era target of 37 per cent below 1990 levels. 

The young people brought a constitutional challenge of Ontario’s plan along with evidence suggesting the revised target could allow for 30 additional megatonnes of CO2 emissions, or the equivalent of about seven million more gas-powered cars on the road, every year from 2018 to 2030. 

The Ontario Superior Court agreed that the gap between how much emissions needed to be cut globally and what the provincial plan called for was “large, unexplained and without an apparent scientific basis.” 

But the judge ultimately dismissed the challenge and ruled the young people were trying to impose a “free-standing” obligation on the government to fight climate change.

Then last year, the Court of Appeal for Ontario revived the case in a major victory for the young climate advocates. It found the 2018 law effectively included a self-imposed obligation on the government to fight climate change, and it must do so in a way that complies with the Charter. 

The case was sent back to a lower court judge. Fresh hearings are scheduled to take place in early December. 

Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said the government had given up. 

“The government essentially doesn’t have a climate plan, and now they’re making (that) legal, essentially telling the people of Ontario they don’t care,” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2025.

Jordan Omstead, The Canadian Press

– With files from Allison Jones.