Electric vehicle rebate among staff proposals to speed up Toronto’s target to become a carbon neutral city
The City of Toronto is considering several proposals designed to speed up progress on the province’s target to become a carbon neutral city by 2050.
The City is considering a potential 1.7 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2031 to 2030 as part of its action plan on climate change. This could potentially be achieved in a number of ways including through various carbon pricing schemes, including a carbon offset market, which is the City’s preferred option, and by buying and recycling electric vehicles.
In addition, an electrified TTC bus fleet could also be replaced with a low carbon variant with a target of achieving a 1 per cent reduction by 2032.
The City also announced last week that it was starting a pilot electric vehicle pilot project with Bombardier’s Flexity range of electric vehicles including a pilot Flexity Mini bus.
The Flexity Mini bus is a battery vehicle that runs on a small range (25 per cent) of electricity at a cost of $300/month. The City will be testing two vehicles for two years at a time.
City Council will review the proposals at a meeting on February 6 and vote is expected to take place soon after that.
In February, the City announced that it will be working with Bombardier on a new electric vehicle system for the City’s fleet with the hope of becoming a leader in the emerging market.
We are very confident that the City of Toronto and Ontario have an opportunity to become leader-in-training in the electric vehicle space, and that a new industry is forming where government, businesses and consumers are all engaged and working together. It is going to grow into a very important part of our economy and as people move into it, we will see economic opportunities for all of us. I think it is a huge opportunity for Toronto – a very interesting opportunity to be part of the transition to a low-carbon future. The last few years has been a challenge for the City of Toronto on climate change. But we’ve been able to make some progress in changing our fleet of vehicles, in changing the way we look at our energy supply, and in changing our focus in building our new downtown development, and now it’s going to accelerate the transition from
