Ontario’s environment ministry says it will miss its 2030 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target, but the provincial 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 told media.
“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 it propose longer-term targets beyond 2030 as 10 other provinces and territories have, consult the public on an updated climate change plan, and 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 included federal policies that have ended, including the consumer carbon tax and electric vehicle subsidies, and assumed the province was on track to meet its targets for reducing and diverting organic waste from landfills despite making “little to no progress” on that file, Spence found.
Nor did the government’s numbers 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.
The province also projected that emissions will decrease slightly in the agricultural sector, Spence said, 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, the auditor found.
The ministry hasn’t released a new climate progress 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 the 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% 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.
