Ontario’s coal phase out
Phasing out the use of coal fired electricity in Ontario was an enormous achievement, the greenhouse gas reduction equivalent of taking 7 million cars off the road. The OCAA fought relentlessly for more than 15 years to end coal use in Ontario. It’s advocacy led to an all-party agreement that coal had to go in Ontario as early as 2000. But it took another decade of effort to ensure that coal use was indeed ended in Ontario, making this province the first jurisdiction in the world to end coal fired electricity generation for health and environmental reasons. This section recaps some of our efforts to end coal use.
Ontario's Coal Phase out: Lessons from a massive climate achievement
Ending the use of coal-fired electricity was a massive climate achievement -- the equivalent of taking seven million cars off the road. This report looks at how this remarkable success was achieved and the lessons learned from one of the biggest environmental success stories in recent times.
How Ontario phased out coal (video)
This video features interviews with key players in the campaign to phase out coal in Ontario.
How Ontario can reduce electricity costs by $1.2 billion
This report outlines how an early shut down of dirty coal plants and phasing out the expensive and aging Pickering Nuclear Station, could save Ontario more than a billion dollars on its annual electricity bill.
Documenting the impacts of coal fired electricity generation
The OCAA used data from Canada's National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI) to document the huge environmental and health impacts of burning coal.
Coal vs. gas: OCAA economic studies
In 1998 and 2001, OCAA hired energy analyst Steven Diener to analyze the cost of replacing coal-fired electricity generating units with cleaner natural gas units. These two studies demonstrated that the replacement costs were far less than the health costs caused by burning coal.