It is hot. Very hot. And we are only a few weeks into summer.

This article was written by Justin Rowlatt and was published by BBC News on July 8, 2023.

Outline of province’s 2050 strategy doesn’t say if system will go entirely to net-zero emissions

This article was written by Marco Chown Oved and was published in the Toronto Star on July 11, 2023.

The road to Ontario’s economic future is paved with “clean” electricity, providing reliable and inexpensive power for people and businesses, according to a long-term planning document released Monday.

But the 86-page document leaves a big question unanswered: How clean is clean?

While repeatedly emphasizing how carbon-free electricity has attracted industrial and manufacturing investment to Ontario, and will help households and companies cut their carbon emissions by electrifying their heating and transportation, the Progressive Conservative government’s first comprehensive electricity planning document doesn’t say if the system will go entirely to net-zero emissions, a requirement to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

With demand for power on the rise for the first time since 2005, the report, titled “Powering Ontario’s Growth,” lays out the government’s vision for the grid between now and 2050, setting in motion several long-term projects that could take a decade or more to come to fruition, including pumped-hydro storage and Canada’s first new full-scale nuclear plant in 30 years. The plan also includes shorter-term objectives, including upgraded transmission lines and more support for energy efficiency.

“It’s great to see the government recognizing how much investment really is reliant on clean energy,” said Rachel Doran, director of policy and strategy at Clean Energy Canada. “What’s missing is we need to know the end goal. Clarity on net-zero objectives are essential.”

Net zero is generally accepted to involve cutting greenhouse gas emissions as close to zero as possible and using offsets to get the rest of the way.

Making a net-zero pledge is becoming standard for governments and businesses around the world, Doran said.

“Net zero is something that businesses are embracing,” she said. “They put forward a 2050 commitment or a 2045 commitment and they build a plan on how to get there. I think it’s helpful for governments to use the same tools.”

Ninety-two per cent of global GDP is covered by a net-zero commit- ment, according to Net Zero Track- er. The Science Based Targets Ini- tiative says one-third of companies trading on all stock exchanges have one, too.

The federal government was elected on a promise to achieve net- zero electricity from coast to coast by 2035, and has made it a condi- tion for accessing billions of dollars in clean energy tax credits, an- nounced in this spring’s budget.

“Wouldn’t this have been a good opportunity for them to make a net-zero commitment?” said Keith Brooks, program director at Envi- ronmental Defence, pointing to a section of the plan that says the federal credits will lower the cost of new generation in Ontario.

Brooks criticized the plan for lack- ing specific targets for how much of each kind of generation — nuclear, hydro, gas and renewables — will be needed in the future and no cost estimates for what will be a massive build-out of the system, one that envisions doubling the amount of power available by 2050.

“This looks like an after-the-fact rationalization for recent decisions this government has made to build new nuclear and new gas plants,” he said.

Last week, Energy Minister Todd Smith made back-to-back an- nouncements for new small mod- ular reactors at Darlington and Canada’s first new full-scale nucle- ar build since the early 1990s at Bruce. This came several months after the province announced ex- pansions and upgrades at natural gas plants across the province to meet rising peak demand. (Ontario also announced battery storage projects that will pair with renew- ables to provide more carbon-free power on demand.)

Asked why the electricity plan didn’t include a commitment to net zero, energy minister spokesperson Palmer Lockridge emailed a statement saying the province will continue to have “one of the cleanest electricity grids in Canada and the world.” He said the long timelines required to get new infrastructure built, exacerbated by federal government requirements for assessments of environmental, social, economic, cultural and heritage impacts, are holding up clean energy investments.

“The largest barrier to achieving a zero-emissions electricity system in Ontario remains the federal government’s Impact Assessment Act, because it can’t take a decade to site new clean electricity generation,” Lockridge wrote.

The province’s electricity plan includes two pumped-water energy storage projects, expanded energy efficiency programs and support for rooftop solar and bidirectional charging for electric vehicles, so they can feed energy into the grid. It also mentions new high-voltage transmission lines across the province — considered essential for moving power from where it’s generated to where it’s needed. They include one into downtown Toronto, several in southwestern Ontario to connect London, Windsor and Sarnia, and more to support clean steel in Sault Ste. Marie and industry in Timmins and in Ottawa.

When Premier Doug Ford was first elected in 2018, he spent $231 million to cancel more than 700 clean energy projects and eliminated the electric vehicle (EV) purchase subsidy. With no new renewables coming online, the electricity system has come to rely more heavily on natural gas, driving up emissions.

As the global market for EVs has taken off, Ford’s government has come to herald Ontario’s “clean energy advantage” as a way to reverse the exodus of industry from Ontario, securing new battery and EV manufacturing plants, and the thousands of jobs that come with them.

And Monday’s electricity document, subtitled: “Ontario’s Plan for a Clean Energy Future,” appears to be Ford’s first tentative step back into investment in clean energy.

“This is the first time a Ford government energy document mentions wind and solar and is not dismissive of it,” said Richard Carlson, director of energy policy at Pollution Probe.

Once the current gas and storage procurements are finished in 2026, the plan would have the province’s electricity system operator launch a new round of requests for proposals for “non-emitting energy technologies such as wind, solar, hydroelectric and biogas.”

Taking into account the time to receive bids, pick a proponent and construct a project, this likely means no new renewables will be operational until 2030, he said.

“It’s still a ways away,” Carlson said. “But it looks like the Ford government is opening the door to renewables.”

This article was written by Jeff Gray and was published in the Globe & Mail on July 11, 2023.

Ontario has opened the door to new wind and solar power farms in the coming years, days after announcing two massive nuclear projects as the province prepares for electricity demand to potentially double over the next three decades.

The return to renewable energy projects appears in the government’s Powering Ontario plan, released on Monday, which says that the province will look to another round of electricity generation procurement in 2025-26 that will include “non-emitting energy technologies such as wind, solar, hydroelectric, and biogas.”

However, the report also says any new projects will need to have resolutions in support passed by local municipal councils and that Indigenous “participation and support” will be a “key feature.”

The Progressive Conservative government cancelled hundreds of wind and solar energy contracts when it was first elected in 2018, landing it in court and costing it more than $200-million, as it argued the previous Liberal government was wrong to lock in inflated rates for greener power. Plus, windmill farms in particular had also faced vehement local opposition in some areas.

Since then, environmentalists and opposition politicians have painted the government as antigreen power, noting that as Ontario’s nuclear reactors go offline for phased multibillion-dollar refurbishments, the province will increasingly rely on polluting gas plants for electricity.

In the single biggest boost for nuclear power in Ontario in decades, Energy Minister Todd Smith last week announced that his government would work with privately owned Bruce Power to potentially build the first new full-scale nuclear power plant in Ontario since 1993, as well as three more small modular reactors (SMRs) on the site of Ontario Power Generation’s existing Darlington nuclear plant.

On Monday, Mr. Smith was in Windsor to unveil the rest of the government’s new power plan, designed to respond to a recent report from the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) that said Ontario could need to spend $400-billion to decarbonize its power grid by 2050, while doubling its size to cope with new demands from electric vehicles and increasing electrification in other areas.

In an interview, Mr. Smith said conditions are different for wind and solar power from in 2018. His government’s procurement of new battery storage projects will allow for these projects to be more useful, even when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine.

But he defended his focus on nuclear power. The previous Liberals, he said, did not have to worry about rising electricity needs “because demand was flat in the province and jobs were leaving for other jurisdictions. This is the first time in 18 years that electricity demand is increasing.”

The rest of the plan includes calls for new transmission lines and better use of existing hydroelectric dams. And it calls for the IESO to review two proposed long-duration “pump-storage” facilities, one in Meaford and the other in Marmora. These are hydroelectric dams that can store water in reservoirs, pumped there with excess power produced during off-peak times, and then generate electricity with it when needed. The document also says Ontario should launch a new round of improved energy conservation programs.

Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist with Greenpeace Canada, said the plan was flawed for treating renewable energy as an “afterthought,” with massive new nuclear plants still its focus.

“My big concern is that they are putting the cart before the horse when it comes to system planning,” he said. “They are announcing 6,000 megawatts of nuclear before they even start looking at energy conservation or renewables.”

Provincial Liberal interim leader John Fraser accused the government of being “asleep at the switch” after cancelling scores of green energy contracts in 2018 saying the recent report of the North American Electric Reliability Corp., which warned that Ontario faces a risk of power shortfalls if extreme conditions were to hit this summer.

Peter Tabuns, the NDP climate action and energy critic, said the government’s plan was too scant on details and actual cost projections – and still manages to play down the lowest-cost options: solar power and energy conservation.

“For a lot of pages, with a lot of pictures, it’s a pretty thin report,” Mr. Tabuns said.

Ontario Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner accused Premier Doug Ford of having “grossly mismanaged” Ontario’s energy supply, while missing the boat on attracting the rush of global investment in renewable energy.

This article was written by Gloria Dickie and Kate Abnett, and was published in the Globe & Mail on July 11, 2023.

As many as 61,000 people may have died in Europe’s sweltering heat waves last summer, according to new research, suggesting countries’ heat preparedness efforts are falling fatally short.

The study by researchers from European health institutes estimated that more than 61,600 people died from heat-related causes across 35 European countries from late May to early September, 2022, during Europe’s hottest summer on record.

The study, published on Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, found that Mediterranean countries – Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain – saw the highest death rate according to population size.

“The Mediterranean is affected by desertification, heat waves are amplified during summer just because of these drier conditions,” said study co-author Joan Ballester, a professor at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health.

In a summer that saw European countries hit by intense wildfires and drought, Portugal recorded a peak temperature of 47 C in July – just shy of the country’s hottest temperature on record, of 47.3 C in 2003. In absolute numbers, Italy, Spain and Germany saw the most lives lost due to the heat, with 18,010; 11,324 and 8,173 deaths respectively.

As human-caused climate change drives temperatures higher, heatwaves are becoming more frequent and severe. Extreme heat can kill by causing heat stroke, or aggravating cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, with older people among the most vulnerable.

The researchers used epidemiological models to analyze how many deaths could be directly linked to heat, out of all excess deaths European countries recorded last summer – a rate of excess mortality that was unusually high. Countries including France introduced national plans to cope with intense temperatures following deadly heatwaves in Europe in 2003 – with early warning systems and more cooling green spaces in cities among the measures.

But researchers said last year’s high death toll suggests these strategies are falling short, and should be urgently strengthened.

“It’s an indication to those countries that they need to review their plans and see what is not working,” said Chloe Brimicombe, a climate scientist at Austria’s University of Graz.

Germany’s Health Ministry last month launched a campaign to guide local authorities in drawing up heat action plans, such as through increased protection for homeless people, or measures like providing more drinking water in public spaces.

“The number of deaths is increasing every year … It’s relatively easy to save them if we have a plan,” German health minister Karl Lauterbach said.

This article was written by Isabella O’Malley, Brittany Peterson, and Drew Costley, and was published in the Globe & Mail on July 11, 2023.

As destructive floods sweep across areas ranging from New Delhi to New York, scientists warn climate change will make such events more common

As storms form in a warming and wetter atmosphere, scientists expect intense rain events to be more common

Schools in New Delhi had to close Monday after heavy monsoon rains battered the Indian capital. Landslides and flash floods killed at least 15 people over the past three days. Farther north, the overflowing Beas River swept vehicles downstream as it flooded neighbourhoods.

In Japan, torrential rain pounded the southwest, causing floods and mudslides that left two people dead and at least six others missing Monday. Local TV showed damaged houses in Fukuoka prefecture and muddy water from the swollen Yamakuni River appearing to threaten a bridge in the town of Yabakei. In Ulster County, in New York’s Hudson Valley and in Vermont, some said the flooding is the worst they’ve seen since Hurricane Irene, called the worst weather event in that county’s history when it hit in 2011.

Although destructive flooding in India, Japan, China and Turkey and the United States might seem like distant events, atmospheric scientists say they have this in common: Storms are forming in a warmer atmosphere, making extreme rainfall a reality right now. The additional warming that scientists predict is coming will only make it worse.

That’s because a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, which results in storms dumping more precipitation that can have deadly outcomes. Pollutants, especially carbon dioxide and methane, are heating up the atmosphere. Instead of allowing heat to radiate away from Earth into space, they hold onto it.

While climate change is not the cause of storms unleashing the rainfall, these storms are forming in an atmosphere that is becoming warmer and wetter.

“Sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit can hold twice as much water as 50 degrees Fahrenheit,” said Rodney Wynn, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Tampa Bay. “Warm air expands and cool air contracts. You can think of it as a balloon – when it’s heated the volume is going to get larger, so therefore it can hold more moisture.”

For every 1 degree Celsius, which equals 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, the atmosphere warms, it holds approximately 7 per cent more moisture.

According to NASA, the average global temperature has increased by at least 1.1 C since 1880.

“When a thunderstorm develops, water vapour gets condensed into rain droplets and falls back down to the surface. So as these storms form in warmer environments that have more moisture in them, the rainfall increases,” explained Brian Soden, professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Miami.

Along Turkey’s mountainous and scenic Black Sea coast, heavy rains swelled rivers and damaged cities with flooding and landslides. At least 15 people were killed by flooding in another mountainous region, in southwestern China.

“As the climate gets warmer we expect intense rain events to become more common, it’s a very robust prediction of climate models,” Prof. Soden added. “It’s not surprising to see these events happening, it’s what models have been predicting ever since day one.”

This opinion was written by Angela Bischoff and was published in Canada’s National Observer on July 7, 2023.

This article was written by Laura Paddison and was published by CNN News on July 8, 2023.

Visitors leaving the Forbidden City on a hot day in Beijing, Thursday, June 29, 2023.Andy Wong/APCNN — 

The world is blasting through climate records as scientists sound the alarm: The likelihood is growing that 2023 could be the hottest year on record, and the climate crisis could be altering our weather in ways they don’t yet understand.

And they are not holding back – “extraordinary,” “terrifying” and “uncharted territory” are just a few of the ways they have described the recent spike in global temperature.

The UN secretary general has said that ‘climate change is out of control’, as an unofficial analysis of data showed that average world temperatures in the seven days to Wednesday were the hottest week on record.

This article was written by AP/Reuters/UNTV/ANI/Instagram @grismediofotografia and was published in The Guardian on July 7, 2023.

‘If we persist in delaying key measures that are needed, I think we are moving into a catastrophic situation,’ said António Guterres after reports emerged about the world temperature records being broken on Monday and Tuesday.

The average global air temperature was 17.18C on Tuesday, according to data collated by the US National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), surpassing the record 17.01C reached on Monday

This article was written by Dmitry Zhdannikov, Ron Bousso, and Shadia Nasralla, and was published in the Globe & Mail on July 6, 2023.

The bosses of global energy companies this week urged governments to shift the focus to limiting oil demand to reduce emissions, rather than pressuring producers to curb supply, which they say serves only to increase prices.

Some western governments have announced plans to scale back or halt oil developments and last year, they increased taxes on oil and gas producers after the Ukraine war led to a surge in their profits.

But OPEC ministers and executives from oil companies told a two-day conference in Vienna governments needed to turn their attention from supply to demand.

“We must invest in the energy system of today as unpopular as it sounds … If we don’t, we will have a mismatch of supply and demand,” BP chief executive Bernard Looney said, according to a source present at the conference.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has withheld media access to reporters from Reuters, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal to cover the event, which ends on Thursday.

Climate activists and some investors have placed pressure on oil and gas producers to shift their portfolios towards zero-carbon renewable energy to tackle global warming.

But record profits from oil and gas last year and relatively low returns from renewable energy prompted some investors to demand companies renew their focus on oil and gas to raise profits.

Companies, such as Shell and BP, have slowed plans to reduce fossil fuels output.

In an interview with the BBC published on Thursday, Shell CEO Wael Sawan said cutting oil and gas production would be “dangerous and irresponsible,” given the likely impact on prices when inflation is already high.

Simon Stiell, the executive secretary of the United Nations’ climate change body (UNFCCC), in turn described Mr. Sawan’s comments as “irresponsible” at the OPEC event, according to a source present.

Oil demand has reached new peaks of above 102 million barrels per day this year, recovering from a dip during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is expected to rise further, driven by strong demand from Asia and for petrochemical production, oil executives and analysts said.

The burning of fossil fuels accounts for the majority of planet-warming emissions, which scientists say need to be reduced to net zero by 2050 to avoid the most extreme effects of climate change.

The head of Abu Dhabi’s national oil company ADNOC, Sultan al Jaber, said the phasedown of fossil fuels was inevitable: “But it cannot be irresponsible … It will also depend on strong demand signals.”

Abu Dhabi will host UN climate talks starting at the end of November.

The oil industry has long said lower investment in oil and gas in the absence of a reduction in oil demand will only lead to higher prices.

“The mistake is to think that if we diminish the investments in the existing system, in oil and gas, then the money will be transferred. No. The reality is if we do it that way, the price will go back up,” Patrick Pouyanne, the chief of France’s top company Total Energies, said.

OPEC ministers and oil companies have said restrictions on access to bank loans for fossil fuel projects have deprived the industry of investments needed to even maintain existing production levels.

Investments in the upstream sector have fallen to about $580-billion this year from a peak of $887-billion in 2014, according to analysts at consultancy Rystad Energy, although they said this week the claims of chronic underinvestment were exaggerated.

“It is very important to have the national and international collaboration of governments on subsidies and incentives of all kinds to change consumer habits,” said Jean Paul Prates, chief of Brazil’s energy giant Petrobras.

“Otherwise we will have the same demand for say plastic that we have now … I believe that a transformation will happen much more on the downstream and demand side rather than upstream,” Mr. Prates said.

Amin Nasser, CEO of Saudi Aramco, said his company would invest $45- to $55-billion this year alone: “It is growing in the years ahead, so this shows our confidence in the future.”

Ontario government mum on how much project will cost

This article was written by Marco Chown Oved and was published in the Toronto Star on July 8, 2023.

The Ontario government is going on a nuclear buying spree but won’t say how much it’s going to spend.

Only months after breaking ground on one of the world’s first small nuclear reactors, the province this week made back-to-back announcements of massive expansions at two nuclear plants, promising more than six gigawatts of new generation — enough to power six million homes by the mid-2030s.

Taken together, the three new small modular reactors (SMRs) at Darlington, announced Friday, and the new full size reactors at Bruce announced earlier in the week, would add nearly 50 per cent more nuclear power to the electricity grid than is currently online.

At both announcements, Energy Minister Todd Smith declined to say how much these new nuclear reactors would cost.

Critics at Queen’s Park say writing blank cheques for nuclear power, which has a long history of costoverruns, isn’t consistent with the government’s promise to keep electricity rates down. “People of this province want to know what will be the total cost of this project. More importantly, what will be the cost of the power generated from these reactors? Who is on the hook for any budget overruns?” said New Democratic MPP Peter Tabuns.

For 14 years, Ontario electricity customers paid a debt retirement surcharge on their power bills to pay off the nearly $20 billion in stranded construction debt from the Darlington nuclear plant, the last nuclear project built in the province, which went wildly over budget and led to Ontario Hydro becoming insolvent.

SMRs, which are supposed to be cheaper and quicker to build than a full-sized nuclear plant, are still a relatively untested technology, and haven’t been put into commercial operation anywhere in the world.

Throughout their history, nuclear plants have suffered from increasing construction delays and cost overruns, while renewable energy, like wind and solar, has dropped in price precipitously. This has caused many to question why Premier Doug Ford is investing in more expensive natural gas plants and nuclear power.

“Ontario is facing an energy crunch. Luckily, the solutions are right in front of us — cheap, safe, clean renewables like hydro, wind and solar that can be deployed quickly,” said Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner.

“Global investors are flocking to renewables because they are the cheapest, cleanest source of electricity generation. But instead of taking note, the Ford government is moving in the opposite direction — hurting consumers, the economy and the climate in the process,” Schreiner said.

Smith said building four SMRs together at Darlington would take a “fleet approach” to keep costs down and build up local expertise.

“Sharing common infrastructure between units is going to help us reduce costs. And building four units provides more opportunities for Ontario companies to make the investments to expand their operations to serve the growing SMR market.”

OPG president and CEO Ken Hartwick said Ontario’s commitment to build four first-of-its-kind nuclear technology has “really signalled the growth momentum that nuclear has for the future of the grid in Ontario.”

“In the long run, developing this made-in-Ontario expertise will mean we can export our know-how to other jurisdictions across Canada and around the world.”

After two decades in which more nuclear plants were shut down than were built, the technology has attracted renewed interest as a climate change solution, since it can provide copious amounts of carbon-free power.

However, critics point out that the plants’ construction and the mining of uranium for fuel are both carbon-intensive. In addition, no long-term storage solution has been developed to deal with the radioactive waste left behind.

New industrial investments by electric vehicle and battery manufacturers, coupled with increasing demand from people as they switch to EVs and electric heat pumps, means Ontario will need to more than double the amount of electricity it generates by 2050, according to the Independent Electricity System Operator.