City won’t meet targets to cut its biggest carbon emissions

The city has indefinitely shelved a plan to tackle its biggest source of carbon emissions and said that Toronto will not meet its nearest targets to battle the climate crisis.

Officials were expected to release a proposal this week that would detail plans, years in the making, to set emissions targets for existing buildings in Toronto. Buildings, and the natural gas used to heat them, are Toronto’s top source of planet-warming greenhouse gases, contributing more than half of the city’s annual total, according to recent accounting .

Instead, city staff said in a report that the plan, known as the Building Emissions Performance Standards, would not be presented for consideration at all. The report said the decision was prompted by provincial, national, and global decisions that had stymi