Cut a pie in three. Colour the biggest piece red, the smallest piece green, and the other orange. You now have the foundation for Ontario’s anti-northern energy policy.
The red is liquid fuels, the orange is natural gas, and the green is electricity. A sliver of the green piece is produced by coal generation. Color it black. Only the remaining green is clean.
The guts of Ontario’s climate change policy is to reduce electricity consumption enough to get rid of the black sliver by 2014. There is no plan to do anything about burning liquid fuels or natural gas. By 2024 only one-fifth of Ontario’s energy will be carbon free.
We can skip the argument about whether we should have a policy for reducing carbon emissions. Doubters can put their heads back in the sand. Northerners should continue because the entire northern forest industry is likely to be turned upside down by climate warming.
One estimate has the southern boundary of the borreal forest moving north by 300 kilometers over the next century – completely out of its current range. Such a dramatic shift seems hard to believe, but professor Camille Parmesan of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California found that butterflies she studied had already shifted north by 92 km to 200 km by 1990. Since trees move more slowly, we will only have to replant a strip three kilometres (km) deep and 1,300 km wide every year for the next century. When we are done the boreal forests will all be well north of Highway 11 and Red Lake.
We will have help moving the forest. Ministry of Natural Resource scientists have suggested that forest fires are likely to more than double. Increased drought frequencies will reduce forest productivity and tree-eating insects, that like drier trees, will kill off some of the standing trees.
These projections show that climate change is a special concern for Northern Ontarians. Unfortunately we have to depend on the province and the country to protect us. Canada’s policies matter because there is no way we will get China to stop building new coal-fired electricity plants if we aren’t prepared to cut back ourselves. Ontario’s policies matter because if Ontario doesn’t take the problem seriously no other province is likely to. And because our federal government is one of the most backward in the OECD on climate issues. Somebody has to show some leadership.
Thinking strategically, 82 per cent of Ontario’s greenhouse gas emisssions come from energy use. Two-thirds of that come from burning liquid fuels for transportation and natural gas for heating. To have a significant impact on climate warming we have to stop burning fossil fues for heat and transport. That is the bottom line.
But what could possibly replace fuels for heat and transport? This is a no-brainer. We know electric cars trucks and trains work very well. We know that electric heating is clean and safe. We can produce clean electricity. Only electricity can really replace fossil fuels for heat and transportation. Electricity is the key to saving our forests. The only reason we don’t use electricity for transportation and heating is that fossil fuels are cheap.
Ontario’s answer to climate warming is simple; TRIPLE electricity production, tax carbon emission, and put a carbon tariff on all imports that don’t use clean power.
The hard part of the project is tripling electricity production. The province plans to reduce electricity demand and add a small amount of nuclear and wind capacity. Now conservation is a good idea. It gives us wiggle room. Wind is a good idea too. It will give us decentralized private supply and it can replace all the coal and natural gas we use now for generating electricity. Politicians are still too afraid of the anti-nuke environmentalists to commit to large scale expansion of nuclear power. The pro-nuke environmentalists, on the other hand, believe nuclear is the only way to stop burning fossil fuels.
Ask your politicians whether they know how much they have to expand electricity production. Ask them how they plan to do it. Ask what will happen to Northern Ontario if they don’t start now.
Dave Robinson is an economist with the Institute for Northern Ontario Research at Laurentian University.drobinson@laurentian.ca
