Time running out to change course on energy choices
At last November’s global climate summit, Canada joined 120 countries in pledging to triple renewable energy by 2030. But in Ontario, which uses 40 per cent of Canada’s energy supply, we are going backwards under this government’s gross mismanagement of the energy file.
If Premier Doug Ford has his way, Ontario taxpayers will pay billions to subsidize their own electricity rates when we could be investing in renewables, while even more CO2 will get pumped into our atmosphere. Not good, with less than six years to keep warming below the 1.5 C threshold.
More than 70 per cent of Canadians are worried about climate change, according to a poll conducted last September. Unfortunately, short-term worry over inflation is distracting many people from prioritizing climate action. This plays right into Ford’s hands, allowing him to get away with a so-called “climate action plan” that has no clear strategy and lurches from one bad decision to the next. But if you think today’s inflation is bad, you haven’t seen anything yet. Climate change will reduce crop yields, pushing food prices up, while floods and wildfires will destroy property and insurance rates will likely skyrocket.
Meanwhile, Ford’s answer to meeting Ontario’s growing demand for energy won’t just delay getting more electricity produced, it will end up costing all of us more while driving up emissions that feed climate change. Already, the cost to taxpayers of artificially lowering expensive electricity rates is diverting funds from other critical priorities like investment in clean energy, affordable housing and our ailing health-care system.
Ontario’s Financial Accountability Officer has estimated that electricity rate subsidies will cost taxpayers $118 billion over the next two decades, or roughly $6 billion per year. This is bad enough, but increasing our dependence on nuclear and gas-fired power will just add to the problem.
Based on work done by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, by 2050 we can expect solar and wind power, currently supplying nine per cent of global energy, to meet 62 per cent of global electricity demand. And the primary driver of such staggering growth is economic, over and above its power to confront climate change. Simply put, this energy will be cheaper to produce than fossil fuel or nuclear energy.
Now consider these Ontario Clean Air Alliance figures on some future electricity scenarios for Ontario: we could build offshore wind power and get electricity at an estimated 14.3 cents/kilowatt hour, or we could pay 22.7 cents/kWh for gas-fired energy and 24.4 cents/ kWh for new nuclear energy.
Why, then, is Ford pushing to rebuild the aging Pickering nuclear power plant? What makes this “plan” even more ridiculous and worrisome is that while this timeconsuming project lumbers along, the added reliance on gas power will increase emissions by as much as 600 per cent.
Despite 35 Ontario communities having endorsed a gas-plant phaseout, Ford is ignoring opposition while conjuring up yet another back-room deal to refurbish the Pickering site, despite the absence of accurate cost projections for the work.
Not to mention the fact that nuclear builds are notorious for extensive time and cost overruns, while adding to our burden of nuclear waste, which can take 100,000 or more years to lose its radioactivity and is very costly to store safely.
The people of Ontario deserve better. We deserve lower cost energy and a viable plan for meeting energy demand while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It’s time to speak up, speak loudly and demand the Ford government get serious about cheap, renewable energy. Then we’d have a more sustainable future, with the added bonus of more money in our pockets.