The government of the Canadian province of Ontario plans to invest more than C$7bn (US$5.4bn) over the next four years to cut the province's carbon footprint.
Ontario plans to provide incentives for building renovation, to strengthen building code regulations and to phase out gas for heating, requiring all new homes to be heated with electricity or geothermal systems by 2030 (expanded to all buildings by 2050). In the transport sector, Ontario will seek to reduce the carbon content of gasoline sold in the province and will promote electric vehicles by offering rebates to drivers of electric cars and setting a target for 5% of electricity vehicles of all new vehicle sales by 2020 (up to 12% by 2025).
The C$7bn programme will include C$3.8bn for building retrofit, C$285m for electric vehicle incentives and C$176m in incentives to increase the share of biodiesel and bioethanol in transport fuels. It will also include C$1.2bn to help industries to cut their emissions (buying more energy efficient machines). The programme is expected to be paid for out of revenues from the upcoming cap-and-trade system, which should be approved by the end of May 2016 and come into effect in January 2017. Through this cap-and-trade system, Ontario aims to cut its emissions to 15% below 1990 levels by 2020 (37% by 2030 and 80% by 2050).