Net-zero plan lacks measurable action

“I really wish I could be more positive.” That’s been my answer to the dozens of people who have reached out to me to ask what I thought about the Manitoba NDP government’s recent “Path to Net Zero” promises.

It’s a nice sentiment — to make an announcement about something that is to be achieved 24 years from now. But in order to make it meaningful, decisive action needs to be taken now.

It’s actually not that complicated: we need to reduce fossil fuel consumption and in Manitoba, that means gasoline and natural gas (a better name would be fossil gas as it’s anything but natural). Let’s start with natural gas in our buildings.

There are currently over 300,000 natural gas customers in Manitoba, the vast majority of these are using it for heating. To reach the target of net zero, we need to stop hooking up new buildings to natural gas and convert existing customers to heat pumps, biomass or other options at a rate of 12,500 per year. That’s about double the number of single-family homes in my St. Boniface neighbourhood, or about twice as many homes in all of Steinbach.

Instead, the NDP government is continuing to facilitate nearly all new homes to be hooked up with natural gas. If the government was serious about net zero, they’d be making an announcement such as, “By 2030, it will be against building codes to install natural gas furnaces in new or existing buildings.”

Thankfully, there are great alternatives to heating with fossil fuels, including ground source and air source heat pumps. As with ground source heat pumps, air source heat pumps provide efficient heating and cooling. They are providing efficiencies at lower and lower temperatures thanks to ongoing research and innovation. More on how to do this in a minute.

Turning our attention to reducing gasoline consumption: currently, Manitobans consume over 1.5 billion litres of gasoline per year. To achieve the government’s own stated target of net zero by 2050, we’d need to see a combination of 25,000 internal combustion engines taken off the road per year and either replaced by EVs or the equivalent in increased transit, car sharing or active transportation. In looking at the NDP’s record, they have cut gasoline taxes and have not yet announced anything significant on transit.

Further, they have fallen increasingly behind other provinces in the provision of EV fast chargers. For example, BC Hydro has a subsidiary that already offers 500 fast charging stations to the public and Quebec Hydro’s subsidiary has 1,000. Manitoba Hydro just announced that two years from now, they plan to have six! The transition is happening in serious ways, just not in Manitoba. California now has more EV charging plugs than gasoline nozzles.

Ironically, the net zero announcement came days after Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham renewed his call for hundreds of millions in provincial support for widening Kenaston Boulevard. Any government serious about net zero would say publicly that they won’t be putting a nickel into widening Kenaston. Instead, let’s address traffic issues as other cities do by redesigning intersections, moving stalled cars quickly and offering modern, high-speed transit to get riders where they need to go faster and cheaper.

It’s a similar situation with GHG emissions coming from solid waste. Manitoba has 170 landfills, so over the next quarter century, seven need to become zero-emitting every year. Again, there is no plan to do this.

This isn’t our first energy transition. For example, there were no natural gas heated homes in Winnipeg prior to 1957. Now the vast majority of our homes are heated with the fossil fuel.

Sixty years ago, to eliminate coal usage for home heating, the Manitoba government made it easy for Centra Gas to expand by giving them exclusive operating rights. In exchange, Centra Gas was regulated so the government had a say in prices charged to customers. The single network model offered cost-effective, utility scale pricing. Centra Gas offered low connection fees and even financed furnace conversions. Homeowners were eager to get off coal — no more soot or hauling costs.

The Manitoba government could be learning from this approach to see utility-scale deployment of heat pumps. Just like Centra Gas has done with natural gas, this means Efficiency Manitoba installing and owning loops in yards where it makes sense. In addition, as with utility-scale natural gas, customers would pay monthly to access the loop and loop installers would compete for Efficiency Manitoba’s business — driving down pricing thanks to reduced transaction, marketing and administrative costs. For those homes that aren’t a good fit for ground source heat pumps, they can install air source heat pumps.

The net-zero plan talks about affordability and creation of green jobs. All I can say is the more serious they are about actually achieving net zero, the more jobs and savings will be created.

The evidence is clear that climate actions like EVs and heat pumps offer long term cost savings, and thousands of new workers will be needed to make it happen. What could be better news?

All in all, Manitoba should either stop talking about net zero or put in place the measures to back it up.

Shaun Loney is the former director of Energy Policy for the government of Manitoba and is the founder of several social enterprises, including BUILD and Aki Energy, which have earned national recognition for their contributions to the green economy.