Climate and clean-air organizations across the province are sounding the alarm this week after Toronto quietly stalled a decision that could determine the future of the city’s biggest source of smog and pollution.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Instead of moving forward with a plan to phase out gas burning at the Portlands Energy Centre, a 550-megawatt natural gas electrical generating station in Toronto, non-profit\u00a0organizations like the\u00a0Ontario Clean Air Alliance<\/a> say the City, in delaying action, has pushed\u00a0critical climate targets even further out of reach.\u00a0<\/p>\n At its Dec. 4 meeting, the City’s Infrastructure and Environment Committee, instead of advancing Councillor Dianne Saxe’s motion to start planning a phase-out\u00a0of the Portlands gas plant, referred the item to a single municipal official for “consideration,” without attaching a deadline for a report back.\u00a0<\/p>\n “We need a deadline \u2014 not another delay \u2014 to end Portland’s gas plant pollution,” said\u00a0Angela Bischoff, Director of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance. “No deadline means\u00a0no urgency.\u00a0It is an open invitation for\u00a0endless delay\u00a0at a moment when Toronto needs\u00a0decisive action.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Last year, Councillors Dianne Saxe and Paula Fletcher asked City Council to request that the Independent Electricity System Operator\u00a0(IESO) and Toronto Hydro develop a plan to phase out gas burning at the Portlands Energy Centre by 2035, except in extreme emergency situations, capped at less than 88 hours per year.\u00a0<\/p>\n The motion also asked ISEO and Toronto\u00a0Hydro to meet the city’s future electricity needs by increasing local renewable energy generation, as well as maximizing cost-effective energy efficiency.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, the alliance says that the provincial government is planning to “ramp up the output and pollution\u00a0from Ontario’s gas plants,” including Portlands, by over 500 per cent by 2030.<\/p>\n “Under its plan,\u00a025 per cent\u00a0of Ontario’s electricity in 2030 will be produced by burning fossil gas \u2013 up from only 4 per cent\u00a0in 2017. We are going in the wrong direction,” the alliance wrote on its website<\/a> last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a press release on Friday, the alliance urged Toronto Hydro to develop a plan to phase out the gas plant, claiming that\u00a0ISEO has “ignored\u00a0City Council’s\u00a0request” to replace it with energy efficiency, local renewables, and energy storage.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Toronto City Council has recognized that we are in a climate emergency and has committed the city to reach net zero by 2040. These goals cannot be achieved if the electricity supplied to the city by the Independent Electricity System Operator continues to get dirtier and more based on fossil fuels,” reads a letter from Councillor Saxe regarding the issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n Saxe goes on to recommend that City Council “request Toronto Hydro Board to propose and cost a plan for electricity supply to the City of Toronto that is aligned with the City’s 2040 net zero target, phases out the Portlands gas plant by 2035…and aggressively pursues all cost-effective local energy efficiency, renewable energy and storage options.”\u00a0<\/p>\n The next City Council meeting,\u00a0Bischoff says, is a chance for the city’s residents and climate advocates to stop the delay from stretching into years.\u00a0<\/p>\n