Municipal Governments in Ontario and Climate Action
Climate change is a major, defining, challenge for Canadians and the rest of the world in the 21st century. A changing climate has the potential to alter global economic patterns negatively, reduce economic growth, expose humanity to new health and security threats and spark mass migrations throughout the world. While Canada’s overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are small (2%) relative to the global total and Ontario’s are 40% of the nation’s, citizens have demanded that Canada and Ontario must do what it can to reduce emissions and adapt to those climatic affects that cannot be reversed. This is as much for international leadership as it is a deep sense of civic and moral duty many Canadians feel toward making our environment for our children and grandchildren.
As municipal governments, AMO’s members offer front line services each day and everyday that make the lives of Ontario’s residents better. Municipal roads and bridges, water and wastewater, transit, social housing, libraries, community centres and waste, amongst many others, support residents and businesses, help to keep people healthy and safe, create cultural and social opportunities, help them learn, support the most vulnerable in our communities and keep our physical environments clean. Municipal governments offer all of this to our residents as affordably as possible while being responsible to our residents’ needs and wants, on only nine cents of each household tax dollar. AMO believes strongly that investment in municipal services can increase economic growth, health and social outcomes while increasing environmental quality at a cost that is affordable to Ontarians.
Read Municipal Governments in Ontario and Climate Action, AMO's Submission to the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks.
