Ontario to release climate change strategy

Ontario released a new climate change strategy on Tuesday that seeks to enshrine the Canadian province's planned cap-and-trade scheme in law and as its centrepiece policy.

The government listed promotion of zero-emissions and hybrid vehicles, low carbon fuels and energy-efficient buildings as steps to reaching its goal.

The release of the climate strategy comes ahead of next week's opening of a United Nations climate summit in Paris that Wynne will attend alongside her fellow premiers and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The cap-and-trade system that will put a price on carbon emissions in an effort to reduce greenhouse gases was previously announced by Premier Kathleen Wynne.

Ontario is planning to link its carbon trade system with ones in California and Quebec, and early estimates could bring $2 billion annually in revenue for the provincial government.

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NDP critic Peter Tabuns called the climate change strategy "a re-announcement of an announcement to come" and suggested the Liberals wanted to capitalize on the attention that Alberta's newly released climate change plan received.

Mike Schreiner, the leader of the Green Party of Ontario, says he didn't hear anything new in the announcement but says at least they are "moving the conversation forward".

Never mind that contrary to Wynne's and Murray's claims, carbon taxes - particularly those that return 100% of their revenues to the public in the form of income tax cuts - are widely considered to be more transparent and effective than cap-and-trade, which is a stock market trading in the right to pollute.

Ontario also reiterated its GHG emission reduction targets of 15% below 1990 levels by 2020, 37% below by 2030, and 80% below by 2050.