Toronto's Emissions

Do you remember this? it was a result of the ice storm in Toronto in 2013. The heat wave in 2016? we can expect more frequent climate change events in the future.

Toronto City Council's emissions reduction targets are documented in the TransformTO plan (pdf). These targets are based on Toronto's 1990 emissions: 30% by 2020; 65% by 2030; 80% by 2050. If Toronto follows TransformTO, we will not reach zero GHG emissions until after 2050. In the Paris Agreement, Canada pledged to aim to keep global temperature increases well below 2 degrees C and to aim to keep them below 1.5 degrees C. The TransformTO plan has a list of actions.

According to the IPCC, for a likely chance of remaining around 1.5^oC the global carbon budget is 420 GtCO2e,

Toronto's share of the global population is 0.03% so the population-share of the global carbon budget is approximately 160 MtCO₂e and will be exceeded by 2033.

Toronto's share of global emissions is 0.05% so the emissions-share of the global carbon budget is 260 MtCO₂e and will be exceeded by 2042.

The following chart compares the TransformTO targets with the targets needed to keep below Toronto's population and emissions share of the carbon budget for keeping global temperature increases of 1.5^oC.

The population-based targets are more ambitious than the TransformTO targets.

The targets in this table are percentages below the 1990 annual emissions of 27.05 MtCO₂e