Evidence of meeting #7 for Bill C-30 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was targets.
A recording is available from Parliament.
6:50 p.m.
Prof. Mark Jaccard
Absolutely.
6:50 p.m.
Liberal
John Godfrey Liberal Don Valley West, ON
All right.
Then I also want to just make sure that, just as you are, in fact, in favour of our participation in an international system, you're not opposed in principle to our participating in a well-verified, validated international trading system. Your concern is simply supply in the short term. The concept of Canadian industry being able to get through a transition period by acquiring credits through verifiable additionality, so to speak, doesn't offend you.
6:50 p.m.
Prof. Mark Jaccard
That's right, although I want to be careful with “verifiable”, because I have some issues with what we define as offsets, whether they're happening in Canada or elsewhere, but just in general.
6:50 p.m.
Liberal
John Godfrey Liberal Don Valley West, ON
To take you down the road a little further, then, toward the end of your presentation you concluded that we need to get going with policies right away, policies of compulsoriness that would apply to the 100% of emitters, not the 50%. Would it be fair to conclude from that that if we got going with short-term policies of compulsoriness for the entire sector of emitters, we might expect some predictable—indeed, measurable—short-term results that we might call targets?
6:50 p.m.
Prof. Mark Jaccard
Yes, although I don't understand the words “short-term policies”. To me, a policy in this context is going to be a policy that involves technological transformations, so it's inevitably a long-term policy and it starts today.
6:50 p.m.
Liberal
John Godfrey Liberal Don Valley West, ON
Correct. So let me correct myself and make sure I've heard you properly here. If you start with the right policies in the short term—that assumes you're going to be continuing those policies, that there's no deviation, and that people had therefore better line up with those policies—that will get us on the right track, but it will also produce some shorter-term results that we might be able to measure and indeed call targets.
6:50 p.m.
Prof. Mark Jaccard
Yes, and those are on diagram 6 that I've given you. You can pick different years along there, but please recognize that there's great uncertainty about those values. They're a prediction about how the economy would respond to certain policies.
6:50 p.m.
Liberal
John Godfrey Liberal Don Valley West, ON
But we have to get going now, in the short term, for the long term.
That leads me back to you, Ms. Hughes Anthony. If we're going to get going on this, do you see any problem with the argument for short-term compulsory policies starting as soon as possible, leading to the long term being consistent? Do you have any problem with what Dr. Jaccard is talking about?
6:50 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
No, but I think the point that was raised by Mr. Wood was that if you're going to set short-term targets, you need to have them set in some context that coincides with your long-term framework—if I have you right, Mr. Wood. I'm not sure if we're saying the same thing or not, Mr. Godfrey, but I would certainly agree with Mr. Wood's observation on that point.
6:50 p.m.
Liberal
John Godfrey Liberal Don Valley West, ON
Could I just ask one quickie? It's just a yes or no.
Did the business community, back in the 1990s, actually push for an international greenhouse gas emissions trading system, to allow businesses to be able to make those transitions in Canada more easily?
6:55 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
I'm sorry, but I don't know the answer to that question, Mr. Godfrey. I can find out, if you like.
6:55 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
My question actually is to Mr. Martin, to start. Canada is responsible for less than 2% of the greenhouse gases in the world. Is that correct?
6:55 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
And you suggest that we can meet our Kyoto commitments by the period of 2008 to 2012?
6:55 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Do you believe it's possible to meet those commitments without international credits?
6:55 p.m.
Greenpeace Canada
International credits will have to be part of the solution.
6:55 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
In essence, we would have to send money to third world countries, developing countries, to meet our Kyoto targets and to help them build more efficient industries. In fact, I think that was what you said: Let's not send money over to them so they can spend it on the projects they want, let's send it over to them so that they can build more efficient plants, etc.
6:55 p.m.
Greenpeace Canada
The physical reality is that carbon dioxide doesn't stop at the 49th parallel or any other border. If we can make efficient investments elsewhere, outside of the country, that works too. But we don't think we should be investing in so-called hot air. Let's invest in the really effective greenhouse-gas-reducing technologies.
6:55 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
I understand that.
China is responsible for somewhere in the neighbourhood of 17% of the greenhouse gases.
6:55 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
It's about right.
And it's 11% to 12% for India. Is that correct?
6:55 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Indeed, China, for instance, is introducing a new coal-fired plant every week right now. I think they're building one right now, aren't they? Is that correct?
