City report urges 30% cut in greenhouse gases by 2020

[wyliepoon]

Globe

Link to article


City report urges 30-per-cent cut in greenhouse gases by 2020
Reduced car, water usage could make Toronto environmental leader, Miller says

JENNIFER LEWINGTON

CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF

Toronto residents will be asked to leave their cars at home more often and water their lawns less frequently -- and make other lifestyle changes -- to achieve ambitious environmental goals unveiled yesterday by the city.

Mayor David Miller says residents and businesses are "ready and able" to do their part to pull off a dramatic 30-per-cent cut in emissions of greenhouse gases by 2020 (over 1990 levels) and take other bold steps to improve air quality.

"I am not sure it is a case of doing without," he told reporters after the release of a city report, instantly hailed by environmental groups, but cautiously received by business, that sets a course to make Toronto a green leader over the next two decades. "It is a matter of changing behaviour," Mr. Miller said.

The report, to be debated on Monday at the city's executive committee, will be the basis for public consultations in late April before any decisions by council over the summer.

Mr. Miller brushed off suggestions that drivers will not leave their cars at home (assuming they have transit or other alternatives) or that residents will be unwilling to give up their power lawnmowers (for a push mower) or that businesses will balk at investing in energy-saving measures. He cited the speedy acceptance of the city's organic bin collection as evidence that residents are open to changing behaviour.

Environmental spokesmen agree. "There are a whole bunch of things you can do to reduce energy that don't involve big change," said Keith Stewart, manager of World Wildlife Canada's climate change program. "But there are some things people will have to change, like hopping into their car to go to the corner store."

He praised the report, saying "it puts Toronto back up among international leaders," urging Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and Prime Minister Stephen Harper to follow the city's lead.

But others were not as quick to embrace the proposals.

"It is pretty easy to agree on the goal of a greener Toronto, but is it good for the economy and is it affordable?" asked Carol Wilding, president of the Toronto Board of Trade. She said the report fails to address the need to assess the impact of any proposals on business competitiveness.

At this point, there is no overall price tag for the measures outlined in the report and no sure sources of revenue to pay for key elements, such as the city's proposed (but unfunded) $6.1-billion light-rail transit plan.

As well, individuals and businesses would have to make upfront investments in energy retrofits, replacement of leaky toilets and purchases of hybrid vehicles, in hopes of getting a green payback later.

Mr. Miller conceded that "the city can't do this on its own.

"We can only succeed to combat climate change if everyone acts, individuals, businesses, the city and other parties," he said. "But I also know that Torontonians very much want to do the right thing."

By design, the "framework" report lays out a menu of options that could be included in a formal plan with specific targets and timelines.

For example, the report suggests ways to promote energy conservation, such as mandatory green building standards for new buildings, including businesses and residences, by 2012 at the latest. Officials are not sure yet if there is sufficient authority under the new City of Toronto Act to impose mandatory rules or if the province would have to agree to the measure.

Another energy conversation suggestion is to retrofit 50 per cent of single family homes and small businesses by 2020, with existing federal and provincial government programs tapped to help pay for the investments. As well, the report cites a possible 50-per-cent reduction in small-engine (such as lawnmowers) use by 2020.

Conspicuously absent from the report is any mention of road tolls or congestion charges as levers to change behaviour.

Clearing the air

The city has published a call to action and discussion aimed at setting a new "climate change and clean air action plan". The document suggests ambitious reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions by public and private sectors and proposes a variety of ways to achieve them.

Where greenhouse gases come from . . .

Greenhouse-gas emissions by sector In millions of tonnes, 2004

Industrial: 2.0 (8%)

Transportation: 8.7 (35%)

Residential: 6.0 (25%)

Commercial: 6.9 (28%)

Waste: 0.9 (4%)

Greenhouse-gas emissions by source In millions of tonnes, 2004

Natural gas: 8.7 (35%)

Diesel: 2.2 (9%)

Waste: 0.9 (4%)

Electricity: 6.3 (26%)

Gasoline: 6.4 (26%)

Greenhouse-gas emissions by city government and other urban sources In millions of tonnes,2004

Toronto urban area: 94%

City government: 6%

City government (1,590,736 tonnes, 2004)

Landfill management: 45%

Buildings: 37%

Water: 10%

Streetlights: 2%

Vehicles: 6%

. . . and what Toronto can do about it

- Reduce city-wide emissions of greenhouse gases by 6 per cent by 2012; 30 per cent

by 2020; and 80 per cent by 2050.

- Make 50 per cent of homes and small businesses more energy-efficient by 2020.

- Set mandatory green building standards for new buildings by 2012.

- Implement the city's $6-billion light-rail transit plan.

- Cut small-engine use by 50 per cent by 2020.

- Set annual parking or a motor-vehicle-registration fee to pay for building

improvements to save energy and renewable energy programs.

- Complete a 1,000-kilometre bicycle path network by 2012.

- Convert the city's fleet of diesel-fuel vehicles to bio-diesel by 2015.

- Reduce electricity for pumping and treating water by cutting water use by 50 per cent

by 2020.

- Expand deep-lake-water cooling to meet 90 per cent of space cooling needs in the

downtown and along the waterfront by 2020.

- Meet 25 per cent of energy demand in the Toronto area from renewable sources by

2020.

- Expand and extend Toronto Hydro energy conservation and renewable-energy

programs.

 

[prometheus the supremo]

- Convert the city's fleet of diesel-fuel vehicles to bio-diesel by 2015.

bio fuel is a trojan horse. it does huge damage and is counter -productive. entire forests get wiped out because farmers want to cash in and less farmers grow food crops because fuel crops make more $$$. because this, the supply of food is lowered and staple foods skyrocket in $$ and people can't afford to eat. all the trees cut down to make farmland for bio-fuel would have done way more to help the environment. bio-fuel still produces exhaust and greenhouse gasses. the sulfur content in petrol products actually reduce the greenhouse effect (but cause acid rain).

bio fuels or materials destined to be bio fuel should not be imported from other nations. its production should be serverely limited in our own country to farms who can not produce or make a profit off of food crops. no new farmland should be created for bio fuel and the population should not loose food supply or have a drastic price increase in food supply due to food crop shortages due to bio fuel.

 

[wyliepoon]

^ I watched an episode of "Mythbusters" where a diesel car ran on filtered used cooking oil from restaurants. Don't know if it really works or not...

Youtube clip

 

[prometheus the supremo]

bio fuels from waste, sewage, etc. i have no problem with.

 

[wyliepoon]

Star

Link to article

T.O. 2050: Bad weather ahead

Unless we seriously put the brakes on greenhouse gas emissions, in a few decades this city will be beset by long stretches of extreme heat, drought, freak storms and flash floods
Mar 25, 2007 07:42 AM
Catherine Porter
toronto star



There'll be no relief at the lake or from your taps, which when they do work will sputter out water with a dank odour – the result of algae blooms spreading across Lake Ontario's warmed surface.

Frayed nerves will result in more shootings and stabbings.

The North isn't the only place in Canada that will suffer gravely from our fossil fuel addiction. Toronto will be hard hit, too.

"In terms of the number of people affected, the urban communities are the least resilient and the most vulnerable," says Eva Ligeti, the province's former Environment Commissioner.

Now head of the Clean Air Partnership, an environmental charity that recently published a "scan" surveying the threats of climate change to Toronto, Ligeti says that with just one kind of climate change impact, "the whole system would be under pressure. Imagine two weeks with no electricity, no access to gas. Just imagine what that would be like."

Toronto city mayor David Miller has come out with his rescue plan: an 80-per-cent cut to the city's greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. He hopes the provincial and federal governments follow suit. That way, complete catastrophe might be avoided.

But it won't help us in the short term. Our course was set years ago, since greenhouse gases linger in the atmosphere for a century.

"I wish the governments had responded to the alarm bells 25 years ago," says Gord Perks, a Toronto councillor who is also one of the city's best known environmental activists. "Even if we all stop emissions tomorrow, the climate will change. We're all committed."

So, what are we in for? What will Toronto look like over the next 50 years?

To get an idea, cast your mind back two summers, the hottest in the city's – and the country's – recorded history.

The mercury bubbled above 30 degrees on 38 days – 25 more than average. Factoring in the humidex, it surged above 35 degrees a record 44 times. There was no relief at night – it was hotter than 20 degrees for more than three weeks.

It was also the most polluted summer on record. The air was thick with smog for 44 days – more than double the summer before.

By August, we were in the midst of the biggest drought in 50 years – less than six centimetres of rain had fallen since the beginning of May. People slumped in the city's 24-hour cooling centres. The province's electricity supplier was facing the threat of rolling blackouts. It issued a record 12 pleas to consumers to turn down their air conditioners.

But then came Aug. 19: the biggest rainstorm to hit the city since Hurricane Hazel in 1954, which killed more than 80 people overnight.

More than 10 centimetres of water fell in an hour – almost double the amount unleashed by Hazel. The city's rivers quickly bloated, taking out bridges, gas lines and sewer pipes, trees which then downed electrical wires, and a large portion of Finch Ave. Water gushed down roads, rising as high as 1.5 metres on one stretch of Steeles Ave. About 4,000 basements flooded – some right up to the ceiling. Hundreds of houses were without power for days.

That's what we're in for, most experts agree.

"It was a dress rehearsal," says David Phillips, senior climatologist at Environment Canada. "That will be the normal, average summer in 50 years."

More hot days. More hot nights. More smog, as pollution is baked in all that sun and heat. No rain, then unpredictable "extreme weather events" – climate-speak for intense storms.

"The highly unlikely will become normal," says Keith Stewart, a climate change expert with the World Wildlife Fund of Canada.


All this means bad things for our health. The city is expecting double the number of heat-related deaths by 2050 – from today's average 120.



"People can cope on a short term basis with elevated heat," says Monica Campbell, the manager of Toronto Health's Environmental Protection Office. "But when it's uninterrupted and they don't get relief, that's when we get an extreme exponential rise in mortality. And we can expect more multi-day heat waves in the future."

Another 22,000 people are expected to crowd emergency rooms across the province every year, on top of the current 60,000, because of reactions to air pollution – from asthma attacks to strokes. And 340 more of them in Toronto will die prematurely, over the 1,700 now.

Then, there are the diseases and illnesses that will arrive with the muggy weather.

Hot summers, warm winters and especially dry springs make ideal breeding conditions of mosquitoes.

West Nile virus surfaced in Ontario and killed its first victim in 2002. Three summers later, 38 cases were reported in Toronto. Those numbers are expected to climb.

The black-legged ticks carrying Lyme disease recently infiltrated Ontario, gaining a foothold in the southwest. By 2050, they are expected to have spread almost all the way to James Bay.

That might spell the end of summer afternoons at the park in shorts and sandals, says Quentin Chiotti, a scientist with Pollution Probe. "It might be like ultraviolet radiation today – people won't let their kids go out without protection."


Meanwhile, extreme weather events will overwhelm the city's infrastructure. According to Don Haley, a water management technical specialist with the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, such weather will batter the city twice as often.



Flash storms will tax the city's storm sewer system, one-fifth of which is more than 80 years old. The newer parts were built to handle a storm like Hurricane Hazel, expected to come once every 100 years. To grapple with the Aug. 19, 2005, storm, even the new pipes would have to be 50 per cent larger.

"When we put a storm sewer in the ground, it's not there for two, five, 10 years," says Haley. "They are long-term investments. With climate change, it's like your cellphone. It doesn't take long to get out of date."

The city couldn't replace its system of sewers with models large enough to swallow a storm of that size, says Lou Di Gironimo, the city's general manager of water. "The infrastructure would be so massive, it wouldn't make sense," he says. "You couldn't afford it."

That will mean that, like today, the overflow will be dumped into rivers and lake. And since in the older parts of the city, storm water and sewer pipes are combined, that means E-coli. Translation: more beach closures.

"The irony is, we want access to clean water so people can cool down," Campbell says.

The city's watersheds are already stressed. All the urban concrete makes for more run-off and erosion. The streams and rivers swell quickly. Unforeseen storms could turn them into death traps.

"In the city, we have magnificent park systems that coincide with river and valley systems," Haley says. "You have people in the valley taking advantage of a beautiful sunny day in downtown Toronto and you have a really high-intensity local storm in the north part of the watershed, and the next thing you know you have a flood moving downstream with very little lead time for us to be able to warn people."

Despite the increased precipitation, the level of Lake Ontario and the other Great Lakes is expected to drop anywhere from .3 to 1.5 metres, according to Gail Krantzberg, a former director at the International Joint Commission, which oversees water quality in the lakes.

That's because milder winters will mean ice stops forming over the lakes. "It's like taking the cap off a pot of water," says Krantzberg, who is now director of McMaster University's Centre for Engineering and Public Policy. "It just evaporates."

That could spell disaster for hydroelectric generation. Some estimates predict as much as a 54-per-cent cut to power production from rivers, which currently churn out a quarter of the province's electricity. Today, that would mean rolling blackouts, especially as people in the city crank up their air conditioners. But we might get off the hook if, by 2050, we've exceeded the city's goal of 25 per cent energy from renewable sources by 2020.

The predicted drop in Lake Ontario won't affect Toronto's water supply – the level would have to decline by more than nine metres before the three pipes stretching out into the lake would sputter in air. But warming will affect the quality of water. Lake waters are expected to cook by as much as 4 degrees – good conditions for blue-green algae blooms. Although not hazardous, they do make water taste musty.

And if people use more water to nurture their wilting lawns and gardens during droughts, water shortages are likely to occur. That's what happened in the summer drought of 1988. Water use skyrocketed, draining the city's reservoirs to a critical point. Water pressure was down throughout the city, and some people in high-rises in North York didn't get any.

Grace Koshida's parents had to go down seven stories to the laundry room of their condominium to fill buckets with water. Without strict lawn watering bans, that will happen again.

"That's what we're concerned about," says Koshida, a researcher at Environment Canada's Adaptation and Impacts Research division.


All these climate changes will likely have an impact on the wildlife that has managed to survive the city's pollution and vast stretches of pavement thus far.



You won't catch many brook or lake trout by 2050. Cold water fish will be doomed as lake waters warm, to be replaced by warmer water species like smallmouth bass. And oriole and warbler spottings in the city will become rare as migrating birds discover that the insects they once ate in spring in the city have long ago hatched and disappeared.

But, for the city's scavengers, climate change will mean an expanded smorgasbord. "They're going to get nourished in winter," says Justina Ray, a wildlife biologist and director of the Wildlife Conservation Society of Canada. "The more nourished they are, the fatter they are, the more they reproduce."

Possums that have recently arrived from the U.S. deep south will become more of a mainstay, once the frosts that harm their ears and tails disappear.

While such changes might not seem so dire for an urban environment, in fact they can still have big implications.

Phil Myers is the curator of mammals at the Museum of Zoology and an evolutionary biology professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Mich. His studies show that in his area – which resembles ours in several ways – a number of southern species of chipmunk, flying squirrel and mouse have begun to replace the local population.

"These are the most common mammals that are changing," says Myers. "They aren't polar bears or pikas high up on mountains or red foxes in Northern Europe. These are backyard animals to all of us, and they're changing.

"What's frightening is that these things have a pretty fundamental ecological role. They control a lot of injurious insects, and they are important consumers and dispersers of tree seeds. It's possible our forests will take on a totally different appearance as a result of this."

Changes to fauna caused by climate change also have health implications. The white-footed mouse that has migrated from the south and become dominant in Myers' area is a reservoir for the larvae of deer ticks, he says. And the deer ticks are carriers of Lyme disease.


And what of the social implications of climate change in the city?



According to some studies, as the city's temperature rises, so will its crime rate. Extreme heat frays nerves and gets people cranky, says Iowa State University psychology professor Craig Anderson, who has written on climate change and violence. "When people are uncomfortably hot, you get more aggressive behaviour or a variety of kinds, including violent crime."

For every extra degree Celsius on the thermostat, he predicts an additional 20,000 assaults and murders in the United States.

In light of all this, it's no wonder the term "adaptation" is no longer considered a cop-out in environmental circles. We have to think not only about how to stave off the worst consequences for the future, but also about how to adjust in the meantime.

Miller's plan calls for a "vulnerability scan" of the city – a look to see which parts need protection first.

Meanwhile, Ligeti of the Clean Air Partnership is putting the finishing touches on a study looking at the adaptation plans of eight other cities. She says Toronto's insurance plan should include roofs painted white to reflect the sun or planted with gardens, porous sidewalks to absorb the water from flash floods, and trees.

Lots and lots of trees.

They provide shade to cool buildings, their leaves and limbs catch water from rainstorms, their roots suck it up, they purify air, converting carbon dioxide – the most potent greenhouse gas – into oxygen.

It's a lovely irony that a problem created by our most complicated technology can be treated, in part, by something so basic and simple.

Perks agrees. "Frankly, green space does a better job dealing with rain than sewers, tanks and tunnels," he says. "The engineers can't fix this. Nature can."

 

[TdotTrickyRicky]

The irony about the timing of Miller's press conferences on the environment is that all these lovely plans to conserve energy were announced a few days after Toronto Hydro sought (and will likely get) to pass on to consumers a 6.3 percent hydro rate increase. Now the stated reason for the increase is that consumers have been conserving energy too effectively making the energy conservation incentive program too costly to Toronto Hydro's bottom line. The message: don't bother conserving because we will claw back any savings you generate.

 

[rbtaylor]

The irony about the timing of Miller's press conferences on the environment is that all these lovely plans to conserve energy were announced a few days after Toronto Hydro sought (and will likely get) to pass on to consumers a 6.3 percent hydro rate increase.

If you didn't conserve anything then you get a 6.3% rate hike. If you conserved the average amount, you broke even. If you conserved a whole bunch, you're still ahead of the game.

Of course, if nobody conserves anything then additional generating capacity will be required, ala the Portlands power plant.


In reality, I expect this is more related to things like last years $80M streetlight purchase than power conservation. Any bets on Toronto Hydro chipping in a large chunk of cash to help cover this years operating budget for the city?

 

[bizorky]

Another poorly written article filled with assumptions and guesses.

 

[TdotTrickyRicky]

"If you didn't conserve anything then you get a 6.3% rate hike. If you conserved the average amount, you broke even. If you conserved a whole bunch, you're still ahead of the game."

It's an interesting kind of prisoners dilemma where the most attractive outcome is if no one saves energy. If no one saves then rates will not be hiked and there will be no wasted money on energy saving products. But if everyone saves the same amount of energy then everyone loses because the savings get clawed back and the outlay for the high efficiency products becomes a waste of money. If you save and everyone else doesn't save you win but less than the scenerio where no one saves.

 

[blixa442]

Good luck to the city with this latest installment of utopian delusion. The mayor can't fix the potholes on the roads but the city is going to change... the climate?