Canadian cities not getting the truth on their air quality

Cities not getting true air quality story

Right: Smoggy Montreal

CANADA - The federal and provincial governments are lulling Ontario residents into a false sense of security about the level of pollution they're breathing in on city streets, the province's environment watchdog warned today.

The air quality city dwellers actually endure can differ ``significantly" from the readings provided by the province and Environment Canada because they don't factor in street-level pollution, Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller said in his annual report.

Ontario's monitoring stations, which are used by the federal government to provide its Air Quality Health Index, are located well away from traffic and other sources of pollution, he said.

Many residents rely on those readings – called the Air Quality Index, or AQI, in Ontario – on a daily basis to determine whether its safe to go outside, he said.

In effect, the current system may be "inadvertently enticing" people to expose themselves to inferior air quality because they're under the false impression that the air in city streets is safe to breathe, his report said.

"I have data to show that the AQI will say that the air quality is clean in Toronto today, and down there on Bay Street, it's very poor," Miller said.

"It's ironic because Ontario actually was ahead of the game 20 years ago when we brought in AQI, on a world basis. Now we're far behind."

Cities like Paris and London have a regional warning system and a street-level system, which provides a better picture of the air quality in key problem areas, Miller said.

Environment Canada provides air quality reports for the provinces and territories, and an Air Quality Health Index – which combines the quality of air with known health effects – for Saint John and dozens of cities in Ontario and British Columbia, according to the agency's website.

Some Ontario municipalities like Halton have plans to put in their own street-level monitoring stations, Miller added.

Ontario environment officials appear to be "well aware" of this weakness, but lack the resources to correct it, Miller said.

Air pollution is linked to an estimated 9,500 deaths each year and its effects on health and the environment costs the province millions of dollars each year, his report said.

But there were no promises to fix the system from Ontario's environment minister.

"If there are some suggestions that he's making with respect as to where these monitoring stations should be set up, we are certainly going to take a look at that, because I think the reporting that we do should be as accurate as possible," John Gerretsen said Tuesday, ahead of the report's official release.

But air quality reporting isn't the only provincial program that's not doing its job to protect people's health and the environment, Miller said.

His report also slammed Ontario's environmental assessment process, which he says isn't screening new projects as carefully as the public has been led to expect.

The province has gradually "whittled away" at the legislation for 30 years, leaving it "in shambles," Miller said.

"Increasingly, in many kinds of environment assessment process, it's a pre-determined 'yes' and there's no way to stop it," he said.

Right: Smoggy Toronto

Mining projects in Ontario are currently exempt from the process, said Justin Duncan of Ecojustice, a non-profit environmental group.

"The Victor diamond mine, for instance. It's going to be a massive pit in the ground, and no one assessed it," he said.

Miller's report also recommends that the government take steps to protect biodiversity in the province and its fresh water.

Ontario has an increasingly limited water supply and has experienced some of the driest conditions on record over the last decade, Miller said.

The government should raise the low fees it charges to companies who take Ontario water, which would encourage conservation and offset the cost of its water management programs, he said.

The report also concludes that the decline in biodiversity has reached a crisis state, but the government hasn't been studying the problem in a comprehensive way.

Detailed studies are instead being done by not-for-profit groups, many of which have spent years documenting species' decline, it said.

Climate right for green bonds

CANADA - The International Energy Agency warned last week that 50 per cent of global electricity supply will need to come from renewable energy sources by 2050 if we hope to "minimize significant and irreversible climate change impacts."

"Governments need to take urgent action," said Nobuo Tanak, executive director of the agency. "Governments need to do more. Setting a carbon price is not enough."

What's interesting about this particular warning is that comes from an agency that, in the past, has been accused of paying only lip service to renewables as part of its broader energy mandate, which has traditionally been dominated by fossil fuels.

Indeed, the organization was founded during the early 1970s directly in response to the 1973 Arab oil embargo.

Here in Canada, Tanak's "do more" message likely fell on deaf ears. The federal Conservative government is more focused on ways to clean up the image of the western oil sands so that development there can continue unabated. Provinces such as Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia have taken leadership, but at a federal level there's no green vision for Canada — just a laundry list of half-measures aimed at creating a perception of action.

Given the Conservative lead in the polls, Canadians must be buying it. The only other explanation is that four in 10 voters don't care about the environment, climate change or how we leave the world for future generations. Not enough, anyway, to sway them toward the Liberals, NDP or Green Party.

It gets worse.

The collapse of Wall Street has severely tightened lending markets. There's a global credit crunch, and those looking to spend big bucks on wind, hydroelectric, solar and biomass projects will find it much more difficult — and expensive — to obtain debt financing.

The bottom line: the knee-jerk reaction to the financial crisis will lead to less, or slower action on the climate crisis.

"These are capital-intensive projects," says Tom Rand, director of Toronto-based VCi Green Funds Inc., a private-equity fund that invests in technologies that reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. "And we need renewable-energy production to step up tomorrow."

Rand has spent the past year promoting the creation of a government "green bond" that, during the current credit crunch, makes more sense than ever.

The idea is that Canadians could purchase tax-free green bonds in the same way they can purchase Canada Savings Bonds, earning about 4 per cent a year. But the money, potentially billions of dollars, raised from the bond issue would be devoted to infrastructure projects that promote deployment of renewable energy.

"Renewables have to get built, that's a priority, and our plan steps in to provide that liquidity, that cheap debt capital," explains Rand, adding that the bond money could also be used to backstop low-interest bank loans so homeowners have an affordable way to pay for energy retrofits.

"Canadians get a safe investment vehicle, and companies get guaranteed access to low-cost capital over a long period of time. They don't have to worry about that credit crunch biting them in the ass. It's the best of both worlds."

Jobs get created. Clean energy capacity gets built. And Canadians who purchased the bonds get a safe return on their investment and a chance to boost — for themselves, and for their children — development of a green economy.

Liberal leader Stéphane Dion is a strong advocate of the green bond concept.

Last month, Dion said if elected he would create a federal infrastructure bank that would use money raised from green bonds to provide low-cost financing for major clean-energy projects.

A week earlier, NDP leader Jack Layton announced similar plans for a climate-change bond.

The Conservatives, initially receptive to the idea, ended up backing away.

"Mainly because I don't think they want to engage Canadians on climate-change issues," Rand says. "Because once Canadians are engaged and they have something at stake, their psychology changes and suddenly people want real action."

Europe introduced green bonds last year and within three months about $1.5 billion was raised.

The public appetite is enormous for this kind of investment vehicle, says Rand, who plans to shift gears if the Conservatives get re-elected and start pitching the idea to the provinces.

Why wait? Ontario should be looking into the green bond approach today. If Energy and Infrastructure Minister George Smitherman is serious about increasing the province's targets for renewables, then reaching those targets in an environment of tight credit will require some creative financing.

A green bond could fit that bill.