Environment and Climate Change

What is the issue?
Why is it important?
OSPE's position?
Developments?

Climate change takes priority and engineers are there

According to many public opinion polls, the environment is now the number one priority for most Canadians – ahead of healthcare, education and the economy. In recent months, discussions about the environment have been dominated by the issue of climate change.

That shouldn’t surprise Ontario’s engineers, who had previously expressed support for involvement on the issue of climate change over five years ago. In a 2002 Ipsos-Reid survey of almost 5,000 licensed engineers, almost 60 per cent agreed that concerns over global warming and climate change outweigh the potential costs of implementing the Kyoto protocol. A corollary question in the same survey found that 67 per cent of engineers believed that power generation companies should consider investing in new nuclear power plants to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Fast forward to May, 2007, when California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ontario Premier McGuinty signed a Memorandum of Understanding on climate change, agreeing to coordinate policies on fuel standards. Under the agreement, Ontario plans to require producers to reduce carbon emissions from transportation fuels by 10 per cent by 2020 — the equivalent of removing 700,000 cars from the roads.

Ontario and California also agreed to:
• Collaborate on energy efficiency programs;
• Coordinate efforts to switch to clean energy technologies, promote green buildings and increase efficiency;
• Work together on national, North American and international emissions trading; and
• Explore market-based mechanisms, such as expanding the Western Regional Climate Action Initiative to encourage an effective carbon market.

These events, coupled with Ontario engineers’ interest in climate change and global warming issues, have set the stage for OSPE to take a leadership role.

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