In 2005, smog hung over Toronto for 48 days during what was then one of the warmest summers on record, with 38 days when the temperature soared to 30C or above. Six people died due to the heat, humidity and air pollution.It was the worst year for smog — a record — but only one of many from 2003 to 2013, a period when the city had so many smog days they added up to nearly half a year, according to air quality data obtained by the Star from Ontario’s environment ministry.Since 2014 — the year the Ontario government shuttered the last of the province’s coal-fired electricity plants — Toronto has had only one.But does it mean that smog days are gone for good? No, says Yushan Su, a senior scientific adviser with the environment ministry’s air quality monitoring unit. Only that they are less likely.Coal was cleaned up at a time when our air quality was improving due to a number of changes, which makes it difficult to quantify just how much the coal plants contributed to our smog.Pollution decreased due to Drive Clean, the province’s vehicle emissions testing program, as well as reductions in industrial emissions both here and in the United States, says Su.But it is known that the plant closures eliminated 150,000 tonnes of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, which contribute to smog, according to a spokesperson for the provincial ministry of the environment, conservation and parks.The plant closures also prevented 30 megatonnes of annual greenhouse gas emissions — the equivalent to taking seven million cars off the road.“It’s the biggest thing that’s been done in this country on climate change. It really was huge,” says Kim Perrotta, senior director of climate and policy for the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.Perrotta worked in the early 2000s on air quality issues for Toronto Public Health, one of the many organizations working alongside the Ontario Clean Air Allian ...
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