Energy minister slammed for quoting source that casts doubt on climate change science
Cites online article while defending decision to scrap renewable energy projects
Ontario Energy Minister Greg Rickford is taking heat for quoting from an online magazine — which denies the scientific consensus on climate change — to justify scrapping more than 750 renewable energy projects at a cost to taxpayers of $231 million.
For the second day in a row, Rickford referred Tuesday to an article in the U.S.-based Climate Change Dispatch headlined “Germany pulls plug on wind energy as industry suffers severe crisis,” as the NDP raised concerns about the Ontario government’s cancellation of wind turbine and solar projects.
Rickford called it “one of my favourite periodicals” and quoted from the piece, stating Germany is “struggling to keep the (electricity) grid stable” because of erratic wind energy and its subsidies that caused “German electricity prices to become among the most expensive worldwide.”
Opposition parties jumped on Rickford for relying on the magazine, whose website says it “does not believe in consensus science” and describes “global warming alarmists” as “those who believe man is wholly or largely responsible for any fluctuation in the planet’s overall surface temperature.”
“It’s shocking,” said New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath, slamming the Ford government for cancelling the Liberal cap-and-trade program aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions, firing the independent environmental commissioner and scrapping programs to promote electric vehicles.
“Everything they’re doing is falling in line with people who would be denying climate change.”
The magazine’s main headline Tuesday was “Why apocalyptic claims about climate change are wrong.”
Rickford maintained it was “appropriate” to quote from Climate Change Dispatch because the German experience with wind farms is “remarkably similar to the situation that we have.”
While Germany has been running into opposition as it expands electricity generation from wind turbines and the pace of this expansion has slowed, the country relied on wind for 18.8 per cent of its electricity in 2017, according to a recent news report from Deutsche Welle, the country’s public broadcaster. Germany has almost 30,000 wind turbines.
Rickford took the previous Liberal government to task for signing contracts on the renewable energy projects that Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives cancelled in July 2018 to save electricity ratepayers $790 million, saying the power they would have supplied is not needed.
Green Leader Mike Schreiner described Rickford’s choice of briefing material as “incredibly reckless and irresponsible.”
“If we have a minister of energy who doesn’t believe that humans are responsible for climate change, that’s a pretty serious problem,” added Liberal interim leader John Fraser.
The furor erupted as a group of students announced an Ontario Superior Court lawsuit, shepherded by the environmental law charity Ecojustice, against the Ford government for “weakening the province’s climate targets and jeopardizing their futures.”
“They know that there is a scientific consensus that climate change is leading to more frequent and severe wildfires, more intense and numerous heat waves and floods, an increased risk of dangerous and often fatal infectious disease, rapidly melting northern landscapes, and cascading environmental destruction,” says the lawsuit, which seeks more stringent greenhouse gas reduction targets.
Rickford was unapologetic about his choice of reading material.
“I believe in climate change and I believe in literature that supports a balanced article on any given subject matter that points out both sides of the coin, right?” he told reporters.
“As a man well studied, I’ve relied on literature sources that oppose my views and my opinions throughout my legal education and other education that I’ve taken,” added Rickford, who is trained as a lawyer and a nurse.
“It’s important that you consider all periodicals and sources of literature with differing views … that was the consideration that was given.”
In regard to the $231 million the government has allocated to compensate developers of the cancelled renewable energy projects, Ontario’s auditor general, Bonnie Lysyk, told Horwath in a letter that she signed off on the estimate last spring and will “revisit” it in her audit next year.
Horwath has been pushing the Ford government to call in Lysyk to do a special audit on the program, which so far has seen $1.1 million paid out to 13 developers — an average of just under $85,000 each.
Opposition parties have raised concerns that the $231 million is a lowball estimate given that a previous Liberal government’s cancellation of two gas-fired power plants before the 2011 election could cost up to $1.1 billion over 20 years.
The small number of settlements to date are likely “lowhanging fruit” and not indicative of the financial pressures the government could face, Fraser said.
“That doesn’t account for any of the large companies that are going to take the government to court,” he predicted.