Minister's Speech

Remarks prepared for:

The Honourable John Gerretsen
Minister of the Environment

2008 Smog Summit
Council Chambers, Toronto City Hall
Wednesday, June 4, 2008

(Check against delivery)

Good morning, everyone.

I want to thank Mayor Miller for the invitation to speak to you today.

Before I begin, I want to take a moment to say a few words about Dr. Sheela Basrur. 

Dr. Basrur served the people of Toronto and the people of Ontario with integrity and compassion.

She was loved and admired by the people who worked with her and trusted by those she cared so passionately about. 

Her leadership and dedication to Public Health and to this province will be greatly missed.

Much of the work we do to protect our health and our environment involves partnerships with municipalities … and I am especially impressed by the work being done by our partners at the GTA Clean Air Council. 

I should also mention the excellent job the Clean Air Partnership has done to organize this year’s summit.

The question we face here at the 2008 Smog Summit is not, “What have you done for the environment lately?” … but, “What are you going to do differently and better in the future?”

Ontario is working hard to respond to this question.

It’s clear that it’s going to take all of us — at all levels of government and in the public and private sectors — to get the results we all want to see.

Solutions won’t come easily.  To my mind, clearing our air is one of the most challenging of all environmental issues to deal with.

The science is complex.  There are many different sources of pollutants and they cut across regional, national and international borders.  We need to bring many disciplines to the table.  And we have to work with our neighbours here in Canada, in the United States and around the world.

We face enormous challenges but we have no option other than giving it our very best. 

The provincial government’s role is to set — and enforce — stringent standards and limits for airborne emissions.  

We also look at where our rules and regulations aren’t serving their purpose and make changes to ensure our environment and health are protected.

It’s vitally important work because we already see the effects that smog, air pollution and climate change are having on our health and prosperity. 

Make no mistake — they are compromising our ability to ensure a better future for our children and the generations to come.

We also know greenhouse gases already in our atmosphere are changing our climate right now and we’ll need to adapt to the effects for years to come.

We have to take decisive action and do things differently if we are going to see progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

This past weekend, our government took part in the first-ever joint Ontario-Quebec cabinet meeting in Quebec City.  You may have noticed something about it in the news …

Our meeting has certainly garnered attention from many different quarters and with good reason.

The Premiers of our two provinces recognize climate change demands our immediate attention.  We cannot wait.

It was an important and productive meeting and our two governments have agreed to work together on developing a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas emissions in Ontario and Quebec. 

This will create new opportunities for both provinces to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help in the global fight against climate change.

The cap-and-trade system between Ontario and Quebec will be a flexible, market-based program with caps becoming more stringent over time.

It will help us make the transition to a low-carbon economy and encourage technological innovation, economic growth and job creation.

Ontario is also exploring opportunities to join other cap-and-trade programs. 

An example would be the Western Climate Initiative, which is developing regional strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions involving several US states and three Canadian provinces 

By working with the best trading systems in other jurisdictions, we can achieve real emission reductions at a lower cost … improve the pace of innovation … and provide Ontario companies with wider access to trading opportunities.

We’re also working hard to do things differently within our borders with our Climate Change Action Plan.  It’s an ambitious plan that will require action from across different ministries.

To show how serious we are about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Premier McGuinty named Hugh MacLeod to head up a new Climate Change Secretariat.  We have representatives from the Secretariat joining us here today.

The secretariat will be coordinating our government’s climate change activities and making sure that we meet our targets.

One major commitment for our government is stopping the use of coal to generate electricity in Ontario by 2014.  We are the only jurisdiction in North America to take this aggressive step.

It’s a very significant move for the air we breathe.  It will put an end to mercury emissions, smog-causing pollutants and greenhouse gases from coal plants.

We’re also making sure that coal facilities reduce their emissions between now and 2014 ... and we’re already seeing progress.  Between 2003 and 2006, coal-fired emissions in Ontario dropped by about a third.

That’s good news but I know we can do better.

Ontario recently proposed that Ontario Power Generation be required to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to no more than 11.5 million tonnes as of 2011 … and to report on its progress every three months.

This means OPG would have to reduce its CO2 emissions to about 53 per cent of 2006 emissions by 2011.

These legally-binding carbon dioxide limits and reporting requirements are posted on the Environmental Bill of Rights registry for a 30-day public comment period.

Stopping coal-fired energy production is essential to delivering on the ambitious greenhouse gas emission-reduction targets we have set with our Climate Change Action Plan.

We need to look across the board at how we can deal differently with our environmental challenges … whether it’s through finding new sources of energy, or dealing with issues of waste management. 

We recently posted a draft regulation to the Environmental Registry to make it mandatory for landfills of a certain size to capture the methane generated from rotting garbage.

The methane produced at landfill sites is a potent greenhouse gas with a global warming potential 21 times that of carbon dioxide.

The registry posting closed on May 29 and we’re now reviewing comments.

If passed, the regulation would help us and municipalities meet our climate change emission targets.

While we’d like to see landfill owners benefiting from the use of landfill gas for electricity, just burning off the methane will reduce methane’s global warming potential by 95 per cent and that’s good news for the environment.   

We are also looking at making a difference on the industrial side. 

With Regulation 194, we’ve set Ontario’s first-ever limits on emissions of nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxide from major industrial sources.

We’re seeing excellent results.  The regulation is working.

Sulphur dioxide emissions from the 30 regulated facilities dropped by 14.7 per cent between 2006 and 2007.  In the same period, emissions of nitrogen oxides decreased by 2.5 per cent.

The numbers for nitrogen oxides don’t sound as impressive as those for sulphur dioxide, however, the baseline for NOx emissions is much lower.

These are significant reductions.  They are showing we’re making good progress in reducing airborne emissions across Ontario.

I am impressed by the number of clean air and climate change actions currently underway and proposed by the Intergovernmental Declaration on Clean Air.  This demonstrates the collective and dedicated hard work of the GTA Clean Air Council.

There’s no question that addressing smog, air pollution and climate change is extremely challenging. 

It involves a wide range of actions, including our recent ban on the sale and use of pesticides for cosmetic purposes, which will help keep harmful contaminants from our air.
 
Ontario is seeing good results on many fronts.  We are doing things differently. We’re taking some bold and ambitious steps.

The initiatives we’re pursuing — an emissions cap-and-trade program with Quebec and new limits on coal-fired emissions — will mean even greater progress.

But we also recognize our ultimate success depends on the partnerships we forge with our partners in this room, across the province and across our borders.

It’s essential we learn from each other’s experience and expertise … and this afternoon’s Green Development Best Practices Exchange provides an excellent opportunity to do that.

Let’s keep working together to help build a healthier, more prosperous future for Ontario and our world.
 
Thank you.

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