It's not a climate crisis if you play it cool

So I was browsing through the items of information reports for city council the other day. Don’t judge me. 

For those of you who are unfamiliar, these are reports posted by the city, anyone can read them, but they may eventually form the basis of an item for discussion in a future council meeting. One recent example was the detailed plan for the South End Community Centre. 

With council recessed till this coming Monday for its sole session before the inauguration, things have been sometimes light in the old items of information folder. 

The stars coalesced though when last Friday there was a report about feedback given by city staff to the provincial Ministry of the Environment on the Province’s soon-to-be-announced climate change action plan. 

Along with a comment that the ministry should continue it’s moratorium on the issuance of new water taking permits, and not approve any increase in water taking for existing permits, deputy chief administrative officer Scott Stewart asked the provincial government to consider support for renewable energy.

“That renewable energy projects continue to be considered for all cases, including even where electrical demand is currently met, by the Provincial Government as part of the build out of the new climate change plan and the province’s long-term energy planning,” reads the recommendation. 

Of course, the deeply cynical in the environmental lobby will only look to the Ford government’s immediate actions following their swearing in at the end of June and sigh. Many renewable projects, some near completion, had their contracts cancelled. Incentives to invest in the renewable sector have also been pulled. 

In the meantime, the PC government has pulled the plug on the cap and trade agreement with the governments of Quebec and California, and are preparing for a court fight with the federal government on the implementation of a national carbon tax. 

Ontario’s environmental commissioner, Diane Saxe, took the provincial government to task back in September for the government’s cancellation without replacement saying. “A meaningful climate law needs science-based emissions budgets, a legal obligation to stay within those budgets, and credible, transparent progress reporting.”

The weird part is that Conservatives agree. Well, Conservatives not in power or with no designs on power, anyway. Mark Cameron, of the advocacy group Canadians for Clean Prosperity, has said that provinces could get a lot of money back on carbon pricing, and he used to be policy director for Stephen Harper. 

Yes, that Stephen Harper. 

None other than Preston Manning has been trying to encourage Canadian Conservatives to “focus on attacking the implementation rather than the market-based content itself.” And no one has ever confused Preston Manning for a tree hugger. 

At Queen’s Park Wednesday, Guelph MPP and Green Party of Ontario Leader Mike Schreiner held a media event to promote his party’s initiatives to combat climate change and noted that it was barley a year ago that the PC election platform had a pollution pricing policy. 

He also pointed out that many people in the present PC caucus that forms the government were going to campaign on that. 

“The fact that in less than a year they’ve abandoned their commitment says a lot, and I think voters should hold them accountable for it,” Schreiner said. 

Despite all this, it’s probably a foregone conclusion that whatever the provincial government’s plan on climate change is once it’s revealed at the end of the month, pollution pricing will not be part of it. 

It’s also likely that the City of Guelph’s simple request will fall on deaf ears. In the legislature Wednesday afternoon, Belinda Karahalios, the PC MPP of Cambridge, offered the highly scientific evidence that she drives past the wind turbine on Lakeshore twice a day and has only ever seen it turn once, so it must be useless. 

For the city to send a letter to the Ministry and say, “Hey, it would be corking if we could get some of those renewable energy projects going,” is the equivalent of the kid that walks into the toy store, is told he can choose any item it carries for his birthday, and gets the cup and ball.” 

In other words, it’s basic. 

With both Schreiner and his federal counterpart Lloyd Longfield touting Guelph’s environmental mojo, and the city itself looking to get to net zero in the next few decades, city staff needs to make a little more noise about the costs of provincial government inaction. 

Of course that doesn’t just mean the inaction on climate change itself, those clear and present dangers go without saying, but the negative effect already experienced by local businesses in the green tech sector affected by the actions already taken by the provincial government. 

There’s also the fact that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said we’ve got 12 year before the worst case scenario takes hold, and unless you’re holding a spare planet in your back pocket, perhaps we should demand more of the provincial government to help save this one.