{"id":64149,"date":"2021-07-29T09:00:35","date_gmt":"2021-07-29T13:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=64149"},"modified":"2021-07-29T09:25:08","modified_gmt":"2021-07-29T13:25:08","slug":"lorinc-city-councils-green-washing-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2021\/07\/29\/lorinc-city-councils-green-washing-game\/","title":{"rendered":"LORINC: City Council’s green-washing game"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At its meeting earlier this month, Toronto city council endorsed two policies \u2014 one substantive, the other symbolic \u2014 to add further lustre to the City\u2019s claim to be moving towards a low\/no emission future over the next few decades.<\/p>\n

As I wrote in this space<\/a> earlier in the summer, the first \u2014 a \u201cnet zero existing buildings strategy<\/a>\u201d \u2014 is a mash-up of calls for more reports and changes to provincial regulations, a baby step in the right direction, but well short of a suite of policies that actually acknowledge we\u2019re in the throes of a climate crisis.<\/p>\n

The second, a member\u2019s motion moved by Mike Layton and Shelley Carroll<\/a>, recommended that council endorse something called the \u201cFossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty<\/a>\u201d and re-affirm the City\u2019s commitment to the Paris targets, yada yada yada.<\/p>\n

Both passed, 22-2.<\/p>\n

I would feel more sanguine about such moves if the City was willing to back them up with an actionable, adequately funded strategy to begin weaning homeowners and property managers off their (and our) addiction to natural gas as a source of space and water heating.<\/p>\n

The emissions generated by the burning of natural gas for these two specific purposes accounts for half of Toronto\u2019s annual production of greenhouse gases<\/a><\/em>. But despite that bracing statistic, there\u2019s almost no evidence I can find to suggest even the germ of a long-range plan to address this particular facet of the City\u2019s carbon habit, which is extremely problematic.<\/p>\n

Put more simply, if Toronto council wants fossil fuel non-proliferation, whatever that is, it should look within the borders of the City instead of hiding behind this kind of green-washing.<\/p>\n

There are thousands of kilometres of gas mains running under the City\u2019s streets. They deliver natural gas to virtually every address, old and new. The gas is cheap compared to electricity, and that economic reality won\u2019t change anytime soon. This wicked problem, in other words, won\u2019t sort itself out, even with gradual increases in gas rates due to carbon pricing.<\/p>\n

So where to begin?<\/p>\n

Alternative technologies to gas furnaces and water heaters exist, are on the market, and work well as substitutes. What\u2019s needed is an incentive program that will spur homeowners and property managers to invest in air source heat pumps or tankless water heaters in order to significantly reduce or eliminate their need for natural gas.<\/p>\n

For many years, the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) has allowed Enbridge to offer rebates designed to encourage homeowners to upgrade to high-efficiency furnaces. The cost of these programs is built into the rate. While high-efficiency is better than low-efficiency, the fact is that the best furnaces still use gas, which is good for Enbridge but not so good for the climate.<\/p>\n

All long-term emission reduction plans are premised on increased consumption of clean or relatively clean electricity. Consequently, electrical utilities and local distribution companies like Toronto Hydro will see their revenues soar in the coming decades. What\u2019s missing from this picture is an incentive\/rebate program offered by electrical utilities to encourage homeowners to fuel switch, i.e., to invest in electric space and water heating devices.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no magic here. Electrical utilities are also subject to OEB regulation and the incentive programs work, or could work, as they do with Enbridge (which is a regulated monopoly). The cost of the incentive is built in to the overall rate, and the utilities (and their shareholders) benefit from the long-term growth in demand for power.<\/p>\n

When it came into office on the strength of a lot of mouth-breathing about hydro rates, the Ford government scrapped most of the residential incentive programs offered by local utilities like Toronto Hydro. So while the new federal home retrofit grants<\/a> ($5,000) and loans (up to $40,000) can be used for fuel-switching investments like air source heat-pumps, there are no other incentives available in Ontario to layer on top of those programs.<\/p>\n

In British Columbia, the story is totally different. Via CleanBC<\/a>, homeowners can access rebates of up to $3,000 specifically for air source heat pumps, and add those to municipal<\/a> and federal incentive offers. This is what an intentional fuel-switching strategy looks like.<\/p>\n

Now let\u2019s come back to what Toronto could do that would make a difference. In April, council approved a policy<\/a> outlining some \u201crecommendations\u201d it could make to Toronto Hydro about climate action. The suggestions are tentative at best \u2014 unspecified investments in EV charging infrastructure and energy storage \u2014 and the report concludes with council dispatching City manager Chris Murray to \u201cconsult\u201d with Toronto Hydro about what else it could do. (A report is due this fall, as is another one about possible funding sources for the policy, passed at the last council meeting, on how to achieve net zero in Toronto\u2019s existing building stock.)<\/p>\n

These hyper-cautious pronouncements make it seem as if the City\u2019s hands are fiscally tied, and that Hydro is some fire-breathing corporate behemoth that shouldn\u2019t be provoked. The reality, of course, is that Toronto Hydro has a single shareholder \u2014 us! \u2014 and that shareholder rakes in about $100 million a year in dividends (i.e., profits).<\/p>\n

It is entirely within council\u2019s purview to decide to spend a portion of that huge sum each year on a focused, long-term fuel-switching rebate\/incentive program designed to kick start a transition that absolutely everyone agrees needs to happen. Even a portion of the Toronto Hydro dividend could finance a fuel-switching rebate program that would reach thousands of homes. There would be plenty of spin-off benefits, e.g., work for contractors and equipment distributors, as well as new long-term revenues for Toronto Hydro. The City, meanwhile, could begin to actually chip away at its space\/water heating emissions, as per its climate targets.<\/p>\n

Whenever ideas like this surface, City finance officials warn, rightly, about the ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul\u2019 problem. Yet it\u2019s worth saying that the municipal land transfer tax is looking to generate significant gains this year due to the insane real estate market. Those dividends have already been earmarked for a capital reserve fund<\/a>, but one could argue that this kind of program also represents a capital investment in the city at large, as well as a down-payment on our climate targets.<\/p>\n

The broader question is whether council is prepared to either allocate funds for incentives or enact new taxes that will be earmarked for carbon reduction goals. It\u2019s pretty clear that council is not yet prepared to seriously confront the climate crisis, opting instead to advocate for soft regulatory measures, like the disclosure of building emissions, or that eternal fall-back \u2014 calling on other levels of government to do the dirty work of cleaning up.<\/p>\n

As I wrote last week<\/a>, I have almost no confidence that this council has the courage to make necessary and at times unpopular choices on issues like housing and transit. Climate is another example. In the coming decades, the decisions will only become more difficult and more painful. If we can\u2019t even devise a local fuel-switching program in 2021 akin to what already exists elsewhere in Canada, it\u2019s hard to imagine how we\u2019ll come anywhere close to those 2050 targets.<\/p>\n

Our net zero plan will be merely a zero.<\/p>\n

photo by Danielle Scott<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At its meeting earlier this month, Toronto city council endorsed two policies \u2014 one substantive, the other symbolic \u2014 to add further lustre to the City\u2019s claim to be moving towards a low\/no emission future over the next few decades. As I wrote in this space earlier in the summer, the first \u2014 a \u201cnetContinue reading “LORINC: City Council’s green-washing game”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4051,"featured_media":64156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLORINC: City Council's green-washing game - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2021\/07\/29\/lorinc-city-councils-green-washing-game\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"LORINC: City Council's green-washing game - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"At its meeting earlier this month, Toronto city council endorsed two policies \u2014 one substantive, the other symbolic \u2014 to add further lustre to the City\u2019s claim to be moving towards a low\/no emission future over the next few decades. 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