Ontario’s environmental commission is warning that the province risks falling behind other jurisdictions in its attempt to increase soil carbon levels because it is too cautious.
In a recently published report based on roundtable discussions last year, commissioner Gord Miller said the province appears to be bogging down in deciding what level of carbon pricing and incentive programs are appropriate to encourage proper soil management.
He said the problem may be that Ontario is looking for policy perfection rather than something that will help.
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“On the other hand, in Alberta they appear to be going ahead with their less-than-perfect system and finding out what works and what doesn’t,” said the report.
“It has forced them to tackle some questions and get some answers. Their level of resolution is clearly higher than ours.”
While Ontario continues to worry about which policies are the best option, “they have simply gone ahead and found out,” said Miller. “Wisdom is the result of the accumulation of a lifetime of mistakes.”
Part of the discussion at a day-long session with academics, soil carbon experts and farmers focused on designing proper programs and finding the cash to pay for the necessary carbon credits and incentives.
During the session, Ontario Federation of Agriculture vice-president Don McCabe said emissions from Canadian agriculture are 10 percent of the Canadian climate change problem but could be “20 percent of the solution” with good policy to encourage farmers to change their carbon management ways.
The farm leader said Ontario action is necessary and overdue, but action on climate change must be tackled globally.
“The federal government has to stop ducking its responsibilities.”
McCabe has attended international climate talks as an observer and watched talks bog down over a lack of agreement on setting greenhouse gas emission targets and how to achieve them.
In recent years, environmentalists have labeled the Canadian government as a significant part of the problem.
Miller said that he complained in his annual report last year about slow progress in tackling environmental issues.
“The gist of its message was that in Ontario we do a lot of talking about things and even planning of things, but we don’t do anything,” he said.
