Lorrie's Update On The Environment

McGuinty's green smokescreen
B February 18, 2007y LORRIE GOLDSTEIN


Premier Dalton McGuinty is sending out so many mixed messages about the environment that it's hard to keep up.

The latest, delivered last week through Energy Minister Dwight Duncan, is that Ontario has dramatically reduced greenhouse gas emissions from its four remaining coal-fired power stations.

These were the stations -- including Nanticoke, Canada's single biggest emitter -- that McGuinty at first promised to close this year, a pledge he made during the 2003 election.

Then he broke that pledge and pushed the date back to 2009. Now it's 2014.

The good news, says Duncan, is carbon dioxide emissions from these plants are down 29% from when the Liberals took power in 2003 and are now below 1990 levels, in line with the Kyoto accord, which requires Canada to reduce emissions to six per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. Coal now accounts for 16% of Ontario's power needs, down from 25% in 2003.

But the problem with announcements like this is that they create the false impression that reducing greenhouse gases to the levels required by Kyoto will be easy. It won't.

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