Ontario schools are getting $200 million from the proceeds of the provincial cap-and-trade program, aimed at fighting greenhouse gases, to become more energy efficient.

Education Minister Mitzie Hunter made the announcement Friday at Kensington Community School, which got $358,000 toward two high-efficiency hot water boilers to heat the building near College and Bathurst in Toronto.

“It’s reducing energy use by 80 to 90 per cent just by that one system,” Hunter said in the school’s library after reading a popular environmentally themed book, Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth, to kindergarten students with teacher Valerie Elliott.

School staff can now adjust temperatures in different classrooms more easily as needed.

The $200 million is being used for upgrades, such as solar panels and LED lighting systems, in about 600 schools across the province.

The money is part of the $1.4 billion schools have been given this fiscal year for school repairs, addressing a much larger backlog of much-needed work estimated at $15 billion.

“We know more is needed in school repair,” Hunter said when asked if schools can expect more help in the looming provincial budget, the Liberal government’s last financial blueprint before the June 7 election.

Improving energy efficiency in schools will help Ontario meet its target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions to 15 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020, Hunter said. The goal is reducing them 80 per cent by 2050.

Under the cap-and-trade program, the province sets emissions limits for certain industries, which can exceed those limits only if they buy allowances at auction from other companies that are under their limits.

The system gives companies an incentive to come in under their limits, because they can make money by selling their carbon allowances.

Ontario entered a larger cap-and-trade market with Quebec and California — a state that is the world’s sixth-largest economy — on January 1.

Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown has promised to scrap the cap-and-trade accord if his party topples Premier Kathleen Wynne’s government, saying the deal “does nothing to protect the environment.” Brown has pledged to replace it with a carbon tax.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Read more about: