On May 31, 2016, Environmental Commissioner Dianne Saxe released
her first report:
Conservation: Let's Get Serious. The Commissioner publishes
such reports as part of her mandate under the Environmental
Bill of Rights, 1993. She has three main recommendations in
this year's conservation report.
The three recommendations are,
- All public bodies in Ontario should get serious about a
"cleaner, leaner, greener" approach to energy, especially
reducing the use of fossil fuels.
- Ontario should adopt formal targets for reducing fossil fuel
consumption.
- Public bodies should be accountable to the public for the
energy they use.
As Dr. Saxe
commented, Ontario currently has a "lopsided" energy
conservation strategy, which targets electricity conservation, but
does not address the use of fossil fuels. More than 80 per cent of
the province's energy needs are met through fossil fuels, while
conservation efforts are targeted at electricity, the
"smallest and cleanest
