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.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
We don't have to specify. But the concept of an emissions trading system is met with favour by some of your members, at least.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
Yes.
NDP
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
I don't see why not.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Maybe I'll pose that to Mr. Martin.
Do we know of any intensity-based domestic regimes that also allow for a trade? Usually the terms “cap” and “trade” are associated. How does one achieve that under an intensity regime?
Greenpeace Canada
Don't get me wrong; intensity analysis can be useful. It's an indication of--
Greenpeace Canada
Yes, of something that's happening one way or another. But if you want a clear definitive analysis of where things are heading, I think they should be based on absolute levels.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Do any successful trading regimes use intensity-based targets?
Greenpeace Canada
I'm sorry, I can't. But I'd be happy to provide you with information on it.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Let me turn to Mr. Jaccard for a moment.
The concept of intensity-based targets is getting some play by this government. The Liberal plan, previously, had intensity-based targets.
Is it intellectually honest to talk about intensity-based targets when talking on the other hand about Kyoto obligations?
Prof. Mark Jaccard
Yes. I don't see where you couldn't achieve your objective with intensity-based targets.
You asked about a particular example, and I'm not sure one comes readily to mind, but I've been doing a lot of analyses of these over the past ten years. You could design--and I think we got there--intensity-based targets.
Now, your question was whether that can achieve a Kyoto target. What happens with an absolute cap is that it gives you greater certainty of the environmental outcome. With an intensity target, you would have to set that and perhaps ramp it up over time. You'd have to be responsive over time if you were really trying to hit a hard Kyoto target using that mechanism, because it has greater uncertainty about the emissions outcome.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Laurie Hawn
Your time is up, Mr. Cullen. I'm sorry.
Mr. Warawa, for seven minutes.
February 12th, 2007 / 6:40 p.m.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
Thank you, Chair.
And thank you to the witnesses for being here.
The two questions I have focus on the technologies we need to clean the environment and more questions on intensity-based targets. I'm going to primarily focus on Mr. Jaccard and Mr. Wood.
Mr. Jaccard, you gave testimony at the committee on Bill C-288. In fact, I asked every witness if we could meet the targets. Every witness, except for one, said we couldn't meet the Kyoto targets.
With respect to meeting the Kyoto targets, you were quoted in the National Post on February 9 as saying:
You would have to destroy one-third of the buildings and equipment in your economy in the next four years to meet the Kyoto target.
And then further on in the article, you are quoted as saying:
Buying international credits in a four-year time frame is virtually impossible because you have to buy it from someone. Someone somewhere has to have done some greenhouse gas reductions and we have to be able to verify that they did that. That is really difficult.
First of all, is that a correct quote?
The first question concerns the Kyoto target. There is a lot of rhetoric on that. My understanding from your previous testimony is that we've passed that opportunity to be able to achieve it so we then have to find realistic targets based on policy. What technologies do you see us using to achieve targets of actually reducing greenhouse gas emissions?
Prof. Mark Jaccard
Yes, that was a correct quote. On the one hand I'm referring to domestic reductions. My modelling group was one of the groups picked in the national climate change process in 1998-99 to assess Canada's ability to achieve Kyoto. At that time, in running our model we recognized that we would need the equivalent of a greenhouse gas tax of $120 to $150 per tonne of carbon dioxide, and it would have to be implemented in 2000. Even then, it was touch and go if Canada could achieve it in that short timeframe. The reasons relate to capital stock turnover--the long amount of time it really takes to change your emissions.
On the credit trading, I won't give a lot of detail, but the problem is that tradeable permits are like currency: they require a level of trust. We see that happening in Europe today, and it would take much longer to happen on an international scale. I think Canada would mostly be buying credits, if any, from the European market, and we could have a significant upward pressure on that price. I'm also worried that politically it would be very difficult for the Canadian government to send a large amount of money overseas.
You asked about technologies. I would simply say that we have many technologies that could get our emissions down dramatically over a 40-year timeframe or several decades if we started immediately with policies that were compulsory in nature, which is what I'm calling for if we want that. The technologies relate to nuclear power, perhaps, all sorts of renewables, some degree of efficiency, and using fossil fuels with zero emissions through carbon capture and storage. All of those things are viable and would lead to increases in energy costs that were manageable and would involve increases of less than 1% per year of our energy costs.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
Thank you, Mr. Jaccard.
I'll switch to Mr. Wood. You also mentioned in your presentation that we need to use all technologies and all efficiencies. Could you elaborate, please?
President and Chief Executive Officer, National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy
Sure. The analysis we undertook on how we could reduce our emissions by 60% by 2050 essentially looked at the full array of technological options. It concluded that given the scale and nature of the problem, of the challenge, we would need to use every possible technology. Just as a caveat, our starting assumption was to do an analysis based on current technologies and what was known about the rates of development and uptake of those technologies. We weren't anticipating any kind of new breakthrough technology that might contribute to the solution here. So the message was that everything would need to be brought to bear, but some things were more equal than others.
We pointed to three strategic priorities that the country should move forward with. The first was energy efficiency, which was the single greatest of those wedges I was describing. It is an aggregation of a number of smaller wedges, and touches on some of the aspects Dr. Jaccard was talking about earlier. It certainly dealt with transportation efficiency and building efficiency, but that was the single biggest contributor to this overall reduction.
The second priority was in the form of carbon capture and sequestration. So we identified energy production from the oil and gas sector as the second key strategic priority in technology.
The third of those technology priorities was the electricity generation sector generally and the need to bring into that electricity system a much more decentralized and distributed approach based on cogeneration and renewables. Just about every electricity generation technology that exists today that we are aware of would have to make a contribution. Several of them would have to see their contributions ramped up substantially, primarily the renewables and the cogeneration.
Conservative
Liberal
John Godfrey Liberal Don Valley West, ON
Dr. Jaccard, I just want to make sure I understand a couple of things here. The first is that you're not, I'm assuming, opposed to Canada participating in an international system such as Kyoto; it's just the way in which we go around setting our targets that causes you a problem. Is that a correct assumption?
Prof. Mark Jaccard
Absolutely. I want to distinguish between the need for Canada to be involved in international processes to address climate change—which I agree with completely, and always have—and mistakes or whatever that Canada may have made in setting its target or in trying to meet its target. That has put us in a conundrum right now. What is unfortunate for me is that people are connecting whether or not we can comply with Kyoto with whether or not one cares about international processes.
My analysis in the year 2000 showed me that if government didn't put that tax in, we were not going to meet Kyoto, so I've known that for about seven years. At the same time, I'm always a strong advocate of international agreements.
Liberal
John Godfrey Liberal Don Valley West, ON
That's good.
My second point has to do with the fact that you're suggesting that to be rational and to prevent leakage, we don't need to focus simply on the 50% of the emissions that come from industry—largely from electrical generation, upstream oil and gas, and the rest of industry's large final emitters, excluding those two; we also need to focus on the other 50%, which would be residential and commercial transportation, agriculture, and waste. That would give us 100% capture of the universe of emitters, and we need to focus on that.
Prof. Mark Jaccard
I agree, and I think this second half that I'm worried about could really explode on us.
Liberal
John Godfrey Liberal Don Valley West, ON
As a third point, do I understand from your analysis that it's not that you're against targets, it's that you think we have them upside down? It's sort of a chicken-and-egg situation. What you're really saying is that if you tell me how compulsory you're going to be toward those six slices, as opposed to your six wedges, I can tell you with a degree of compulsoriness what you're likely to get by way of a target. In other words, the policy will then determine the target. You just don't like free-floating targets. Is that a fair summary?