Small wonder Premier Kathleen Wynne is in Israel this week.

That’s where I’d want to be if my so-called Climate Change Action Plan was leaked to the Globe and Mail Monday.

According to its report, Wynne writes in the preamble of the 57-page document, officially still being debated by cabinet: “We are on the cusp of a once-in-a-lifetime transformation. It’s a transformation of how we look at our planet and the impact we have on it. It’s a transformation that will forever change how we live, work, play and move.”

You bet. Because this plan setting out Ontario’s energy future to 2050 will hurl millions of Ontarians into energy poverty and the poorhouse, without lowering greenhouse gas emissions linked to climate change.

The document reportedly commits $7 billion in new spending initiatives over four years — the lion’s share of all the new money Wynne’s looming cap-and-trade law will take from Ontarians during that period, when it starts Jan. 1.

Among them, Wynne will double down on subsidizing electric car sales in a massive expansion of a failed government program that often sees average Ontarians subsidizing the car purchases of millionaires.

But the centrepiece of Wynne’s reported strategy is eliminating Ontario’s use of natural gas to heat the residential, office and commercial sectors, and to convert them to electrical heating, or solar and geo-thermal, which simply aren’t ready for prime time.

So basically, having sent electricity prices into the stratosphere with their green energy fiasco, the Liberals now want homeowners and businesses to abandon cheaper natural gas heat for expensive electrical heat.

Never mind that this would be an economic disaster, gutting the province’s economic growth for decades, since natural gas currently supplies about three quarters of Ontario’s heat.

It also won’t lower emissions.

Here’s why: Natural gas is now the second-largest component of Ontario’s installed electricity generation capacity (28%), behind only nuclear power (36%) and outstripping hydro (24%).

This has happened because the more the electricity grid relies on heavily subsidized and unreliable wind and solar power — and the Liberals keep adding more of it even though we have an energy surplus — the more natural gas plants they have to build to provide backup power for when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining.

In what the opposition parties called the Liberal seat saver program in the 2011 election, former premier Dalton McGuinty cancelled two unpopular gas plants in Oakville and Mississauga, of the 17 the Liberals originally approved to back up wind and solar power and replace coal-fired electricity. That led to the $1.1-billion gas plants scandal.

Now, Wynne’s strategy is to have businesses and homeowners replace relatively inexpensive natural gas heat with exorbitantly expensive electrical heat, generated by an electricity system that will increasingly have to rely on more natural gas to produce the increased amount of electricity required.

It’s a scheme of which the Mad Hatter would approve. In a word, it’s bonkers.

lgoldstein@postmedia.com

CLIMATE CHANGE ACTION PLAN

The Ontario Liberals have a climate change blueprint that comes with a $7-billion price tag over the next four years. The government want to reduce 80% of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

The province says it has made no firm decisions, but documents from the Climate Change Action Plan have been leaked.

Here are some highlights:

$3.8 billion for grants and rebates to retrofit buildings from natural gas to solar energy or electrical heat. New building codes would require all homes built after 2030 to be heated without fossil fuels.

$285 million for incentives to purchase electrical vehicles, including a rebate of up to $14,000. There would be a rebate of $1,000 for people to install a home charging outlet. The government would install more charging stations at government buildings and make it mandatory to have plug-ins at all newly-constructed buildings.

Lower carbon fuel standards would force manufacturers by 2020 to cut emissions of carbon by 5% from gas and diesel products. There would also be $176 million in incentives designed to encourage fuel retailers to sell more biodiesel.

$1.2 billion for factories that cut emissions by buying energy efficient machines.

$375 million for the construction of a GO regional network and $200 million for more cycling infrastructure that includes separate bike lanes and bike parking at GO stations.

- Kevin Connor