Bill C-30 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) Committee on Feb. 19th, 2007

[Prof. John Stone]

Let me just make a few comments.

It's my own personal feeling that we won't be able to successfully tackle the issue of climate change if we regard it simply as an environmental issue. There is no doubt that it's an environmental issue, but it's a matter of how it's framed. I think this is key to what was asked earlier about how we get other countries involved.

We have to frame it in ways in which we can build a certain mutuality, in which we can build a certain cohesion, a certain grouping of interests, so that we look at climate change in many ways: as a matter of technological competitiveness; in terms of health; in terms of development; in terms of energy security; and in many other ways.

If we look at it in those terms and frame it in those terms as well, we'll be able to get more people to the table. We'll be able to get this agreement among countries, for whatever reasons they want to look at the issue, to tackle the issue of climate change.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

Dr. Peltier.

[Prof. Richard Peltier]

Yes, I'd like to comment on this point too, and really go back to several of the comments I made before.

On this problem of climate change, we have to get the economy working for us rather than against us. It seems to me that this is really the job of the legislative regime, right?

Clearly, no single company wants to take a leadership position on this issue. It's a matter of competitive disadvantage. That's why a legislative regime that encourages mandatory efforts to work toward a less carbon-rich development regime is absolutely crucial.

We can't expect our companies, as individual companies, to take a leadership position in this, because they'll see themselves to be at an enormous competitive disadvantage. We have to make a regime that levels the playing field and makes it possible for them to compete on that playing field, to our collective advantage.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

Dr. Weaver, would you like to comment on that?

[Prof. Andrew Weaver]

Yes, I agree.

There are a couple of things. First of all, why would you not want to develop alternate clean energy sources when the entire world is a marketplace and a consumer of energy? The people with the widgets out first in front of everyone else are the people who are going to stand to benefit, because there's no reason not to have some clean, sustainable energy when it's available, rather than burning something that provides all sorts of other negative effects in terms of health, air quality, etc.

The second thing is that it seems to me that it's not a level playing field. The reason why is the way we cost energy. When we cost something, what is the environmental cost associated with the combustion of fossil fuels? Is there one built into the cost?

If you have a nuclear power plant and you build it, my understanding is that you have the decommissioning cost built in right up front in the commissioning of the plant. If you build a coal plant, all you have to do is find a coal field, build a burner on top of it, and burn it. Who is paying the cost of the emissions from that coal plant? I don't know. Probably nobody. Therein lies where I don't think the playing field is level.

I would defer to economists on this, because I think we really need to reconsider this. They know much better how these things are dealt with economically.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Thank you.

We'll move to the final Liberal round and Mr. McGuinty.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Gentlemen, based on the testimony we've heard so far this evening, I would just ask something about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change process. Have the United States, China, India, Australia, and all the non-annex I countries, for example, been participating actively in the science of global warming and climate change as a hand-in-glove process along with the Kyoto Protocol negotiation process?

[Prof. Richard Peltier]

Absolutely. The scientists from these countries are full participants in the IPCC process, in many cases in important leadership positions. Susan Solomon, for example, is the co-chair of Working Group I. She is an American scientist working out of Boulder, in one of the NOAA laboratories.

So, yes, these countries all have scientists working actively in the process.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

So it's fair to say that scientists from pretty much all 184 nation-states are closely following the reality.

[Prof. Richard Peltier]

I wouldn't want to make that claim, but it's close to it, I would say, yes.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

I would suspect most of them are, right?

The Kyoto Protocol has been signed by 168 countries, so I guess we would be right in concluding that 168 nation-states have science experts who are following the IPCC process.

[Prof. Andrew Weaver]

I would be very careful there. Scientists do not like to stray into the prescription of policy. The scientists writing it are not those who are writing the policy.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

You're not hearing me, Doctor. I'm not talking about policy. I'm asking this question: Do 168 countries that have their name on the Kyoto Protocol, either as annex I, non-annex I, or beyond countries, have science people who are following the work of the IPCC?

[Prof. Andrew Weaver]

Absolutely.

[Prof. John Stone]

Let me try to answer that and make a couple of points.

First, the co-chairs of the IPCC Working Group I were Susan Solomon, who is an American, and Dahe Qin, who is Chinese and is actually the head of the China Meteorological Administration. Both of them are impeccably well-qualified scientists. You couldn't find better scientists. It was because they are so good that they were able to get all the rest of the scientists to work together.

What's interesting about the IPCC process, as Andrew Weaver said at the beginning, is that it's actually drafted by scientists and it's based on peer-reviewed literature, which is literature that's in the journals and has gone through a very rigorous process.

What happens in the plenaries—for example, in Paris—is that governments negotiate the Summary for Policymakers. The Summary for Policymakers is the short version. It's again drafted by scientists, and governments' role is to ensure that it's understandable, accessible, and balanced. Of course, different governments have different views of what defines “balance”. In the end, though, they are not allowed to write anything there that the scientists do not agree with.

In the end, what this means is that the final time the gavel comes down, all the governments present there agree that the Summary for Policymakers is an adequate, proper, and balanced assessment of the current state of knowledge.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Let me put a final question to you gentlemen, if I could.

In the Summary for Policymakers, which I have here in front of me, you're right that there's absolutely nothing here in terms of policy. It's pure science. But is your work in this report predicated on a fundamental understanding that if we're going to deal with climate change, we have to first understand that there may be 184 nation-states, but there's only one atmosphere; and that perhaps the greater the proximity of cooperation between those 184 nation-states, the better the chance we're going to have in dealing with the reality of global warming with one atmosphere? Is that a fair assessment of what you have come to, as scientists, in terms of conclusions?

[Prof. Richard Peltier]

Sure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

I think we have “yes, yes, and yes”.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Is that a yes, a yes, and a yes?

Professor Weaver.

[Prof. Andrew Weaver]

I'm not going to say yes to something when I'm not quite sure what the question is. I'll say yes, maybe, because I'm not quite sure what the question is.

There is one atmosphere and carbon is well mixed, yes, that's true. But I don't think the IPCC concluded anything about all countries having to work together. I truly believe that this issue, which is the single-biggest issue facing humanity, will unify all countries, because it has to. It will have to if it hasn't already, but I don't think we've prescribed that in the IPCC process.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Your time is now up.

Mr. Watson for five minutes, please.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Based on the round of questioning from Mr. Scarpaleggia, I'm almost tempted to hand my time over to him, just for drawing out that great information that it was Conservatives like Thatcher and Mulroney who were acting early on climate change. Coupled with this government's proposals to begin tackling this issue, that leaves us wondering where the Liberals were for over a decade.

[An hon. member]

Hear, hear!

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

I actually want to pick up from where Mr. Manning was beginning to point the direction. There are a couple of areas that I want to probe. One is on the international target side, but I'll get to that in a moment.

I want to talk about the challenge to imagine, as Mr. Stone put it, the keys to creating the environmentally sustainable economy. Can you enlighten us a little bit in that direction?

In terms of the science, you've certainly painted some of the realities we could be facing over the next few decades. Can you point us in the direction of some of the ways that we need to change? What are those keys to the environmentally sustainable economy, in your opinion?

[Prof. John Stone]

One could give a very long answer to that, but let me just tell you a small anecdote to help answer it.

I gave a lecture on climate change to the final graduating class of humanists at Carleton University. At the end of it, one of the students said that, yes, this is a threat and we need to take it seriously, but they wouldn't give up their lifestyle. I felt very sorry for that person, because that person wasn't able to imagine any other lifestyle than the one he or she had then—a lifestyle that, to some extent, has actually been sold to them.

There are people in different countries in this world who have very different lifestyles from those of the students at Carleton University. There are people of my generation who had a very different lifestyle when they were growing up, when compared to the lifestyle of the young people today. There is nothing absolute in the lifestyles we have. There is nothing absolute in our aspirations. We can have lifestyles and aspirations that I believe are a lot more sustainable than the ones we have today.