[calgarygeologist]

Stupid Liberal government is turning their back on the environment and selling out our future. I thought they cared about the future.

Ottawa is proposing to water down its clean electricity regulations in the face of intense opposition from some provinces by further opening the door for natural gas power plants to keep burning well beyond the promised deadline for net-zero power in 2035.

In response to objections brought by provinces and electrical grid operators, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault is now considering allowing new gas plants to operate with no limits past 2045, as well as loosening restrictions on existing plants.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau "made a commitment to a net-zero grid in 2021,” said Keith Brooks, programs director at Environmental Defence. “But provinces like Ontario and Saskatchewan, they have gone ahead (and started building new gas plants) in a direct challenge to federal regulations, and now the federal government seems to be waffling.”

“If these regulations allow new plants to be contracted, constructed and run completely unmitigated out past 2045, and the existing fleet is allowed to continue to operate for its 20-year end of life period as well, there’s no limit on emissions for quite some time,” said Brooks.

“It’s important that this 20-year lifespan not be extended,” he said. “Otherwise, it’s going to be a huge problem.”

According to a summary of consultations released Friday, the changes that Ottawa is considering include:
-Allowing greater use of natural gas power when electricity demand spikes;


-Lifting a hard cap of 450 hours per year for natural gas plants without means to prevent emissions, and replacing it with a limit based on annual emissions;

-Allowing for the “limited use” of offsets for gas plants that exceed their emissions limits;

-“Slightly” extending the exemption for gas plants currently being planned and built, which aren’t subject to the regulations until 20 years after they come online. This originally applied to plants that came online before 2025; the government is proposing to extend that by an unspecified amount of time.

New Democrat MP Laurel Collins, the NDP’s climate critic in Parliament, called the changes “disappointing” because they weaken what she sees as a critical climate policy for the federal government.

“This is them, yet again, creating more loopholes,” Collins said. “This is a critical piece of our climate policy and getting clean electricity by 2035 … It is essential if we have any hope of meeting our climate targets.”

It’s not yet clear how these changes would impact overall emissions from the electricity sector, which the Liberal government in Ottawa has pledged to reduce to “net zero” by 2035. The original version of the regulations already fell short of that goal. Guilbeault told the Star last year that there would have been fewer than 10 megatonnes of “residual” emissions from the country’s power grids by 2035 under the first proposal — about 20 per cent of overall electricity emissions based on 2021 figures.