Evidence of meeting #24 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was change.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Rutherford, sometimes we hear certain people say that it's hard to predict the weather for tomorrow or next week; how then can we predict the impact of climate change in 20 or 30 years? What do you have to say on that subject?
Executive Director, Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, Partnership Group for Science and Engineering
I'm very pleased to ask that question because it's very easy to answer.
I'll switch to English, if you don't mind.
We're talking about two different kinds of problems in physics. There's an initial value problem and a boundary value problem. Weather prediction involves knowing accurately the initial conditions and extrapolating forward in time to impute the details of a weather forecast.
Climate is the statistics of weather where you do a lot of averaging over time. Climate predictions are made without any initial data. Data is only used in order to verify the predictions made by a climate model, which are made ab initio from pure physical principles. You model the earth, the atmosphere, turn on the sun, compute the physics of energy transfer, the circulation starts up, the atmosphere starts up very quickly, and the ocean takes a lot longer to start up. You actually simulate the climate from first physical principles without any data at all; data is used only to determine certain coefficients and parameterizations and to verify the results after the fact.
So people who make the statement that we can't predict the weather even, let's say, ten days in advance, so how can we possibly predict the climate a century in advance are talking about apples and oranges. Furthermore, the fact is we can predict the weather ten days in advance, and it is through the use of this numerical weather prediction model that we've been able to do that.
When I started my career as a weather forecaster, we couldn't make a prediction beyond about 36 hours. We didn't even try. Weather predictions for ten days now are as accurate as they were for a day and a half back in the sixties when I started in this business. That's all due to being able to model what's actually going on and solving the initial value problem.
Climate people solved the boundary value problem where they changed the content of the composition of the atmosphere, the energy coming in and going out, and other parameters like that. It works.
Liberal
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
The science of climate change works and should be trusted.
Executive Director, Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, Partnership Group for Science and Engineering
Liberal
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
Mr. Paton, you say that the delay in implementing the Kyoto Protocol could cost between $4 and $6 billion a year because we would mainly have to buy international credits. So you're saying we shouldn't do that, that that's way too much money.
In your view, how much money would it be appropriate to spend to preserve our children's future?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Chemical Producers' Association
I can't answer that question. I would say, though, that what we should be aiming for is good policy here and expenditures that improve environmental performance and that improve our economy. That's long-term sustainable improvement.
Buying credits will do neither. It will neither help our economy nor help our environment. If we did all of that and at the end of 2012 we looked at our environmental performance and said, it's not very good, why is that? We spent all our money buying credits from somewhere else.
The objective in Canada should be to get the best possible environmental technologies and economic performance at the same time. I believe it can be accomplished. We've shown that it can be accomplished.
Liberal
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
I don't understand how you can say this amount is too high if you won't say what amount would be acceptable.
Biologist, University of Quebec at Chicoutimi
I'd like to speak on this question.
Conservative
Biologist, University of Quebec at Chicoutimi
The question of purchasing international credits is entirely relevant, but it's forgotten that an enormous number of domestic credits have been neglected on small projects based in the communities. In fact, that money will increase our GNP because it will be used in Canada by Canadians for the local economy. This potential has been completely overlooked. But there's enormous potential here.
As regards the purchasing of international credits, there's another important factor. I'll cite, among others, the case of Biothermica, which is currently ready to negotiate on the 10-million-tonne market that comes from action that's been taken outside Canada. That 10 million tonnes is entirely acceptable, and it would be unfair for the businesses that carried out clean development projects outside Canada not to be able to have those credits recognized in the market.
Conservative
Luc Harvey Conservative Louis-Hébert, QC
Mr. Stone, you mentioned the increase in global warming over the past 50 or 100 years. Is that correct?
Adjunct Research Professor, Carleton University
Yes, you understood correctly. Being part of the IPCC and in my job in government I've actually worked with and have sat with scientists who have done these calculations and these experiments, and I've rigorously questioned them. In the end, I've been convinced that they're right. In fact, we have seen the change of the climate, in temperature particularly. It's outside of normal variability, and the only way we can understand it is by invoking the effects of greenhouse gases on the climate.
Conservative
Luc Harvey Conservative Louis-Hébert, QC
Having regard to the demographic increase — we know that the world population is several times more than what it was in 1900 — and to technological means, vehicles and our habits and so on, and if we consider that there was already a climate change 100 years ago, to what extent should our CO2 emissions be reduced in order to achieve neutral warming or even a cooling of the Earth?
November 7th, 2006 / 10:50 a.m.
Biologist, University of Quebec at Chicoutimi
If you'll allow me to speak, it's necessary, to stabilize emissions — we're not even talking about cooling — so that the climate stabilizes at a level two degrees warmer than the current climate, for another three centuries, we would need a reduction of 1.8 tonnes of carbon, that is to say the equivalent of approximately five tonnes of CO2 a year per inhabitant of the planet, until 2050-2060, in the event it would be possible to sequester carbon and to use other means to stabilize the amount of emissions. That would mean a doubling of the pre-industrial concentration. That quantity corresponds to roughly half of what is emitted by a Quebecker each year or to one-third of what is emitted by a Canadian in general. That's a relatively imprecise measurement, but that's the order of magnitude that the studies are currently giving us.
Conservative
Luc Harvey Conservative Louis-Hébert, QC
Earlier Mr. Paton talked about the technology that's not available. We can well spend billions of dollars, but do technologies for solving the problem exist?
Back home, I installed a geothermal system that cost me $20,000. I did it because I believed in it. Are there still solutions for the main industrial sectors, such as transportation? Would the idea be to put all the trucks we see on the road on a train and to transport them from one place to another?
Biologist, University of Quebec at Chicoutimi
No. In 2005, a professor at Princeton demonstrated that it was possible to achieve the objective with existing technologies and by blocks of one billion tonnes of carbon emissions avoided. I refer you to a publication that I surveyed on pages 314 and 315 of my book. To summarize briefly what it states, there do exist technologies that are applicable in the very short term.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
Mr. Villeneuve, can I just go to Mr. Paton? The time is just about up and we have another committee coming in. I know Mr. Paton is anxious to answer that.
Mr. Lloyd.
Vice-President, Technical Affairs, Canadian Chemical Producers' Association
Some of the technology breakthroughs will come. We don't know when they'll come. Companies are always working on the type of process change DuPont did in making nylon. They make huge profits when they come through. They're great energy efficiency breakthroughs.
When will they come? It's hard to predict. That's why the issues of short-, medium-, and long-term approaches are so important to this, and why it's so important to have focused improvement on new investments in capital stock turnover. We could also do continuous improvement, and that's the kind of 1% a year we do, absent the major technology breakthroughs.
So it happens in our sector. We're looking at how we can capture carbon, as are other sectors, and that will come on board when it's ready. Maybe the technology investment fund that was part of the previous government's proposal--I understand it's also part of the current government's proposal--can be helpful in that. But it's hard to predict exactly when these things will come on board. They involve research and development, and we have to take a long-term, a medium-term, and a short-term perspective.
Bloc
Marcel Lussier Bloc Brossard—La Prairie, QC
Mr. Villeneuve, I'd like to go back to the position you adopted earlier on the exchange between Belledune and the wind generators in the Gaspé Peninsula.
Is the question of the territorial sharing of greenhouse gas emissions part of your philosophy?
Biologist, University of Quebec at Chicoutimi
The problem with territorial division is simply related to the fact that Canada is responsible under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The provinces have no responsibility or duty in actual fact. As a result, energy management by province is not the best way to reduce greenhouse gas. If we facilitated recognition of reductions that can be achieved from one place to another by monetary offsets, it would be much easier to achieve that type of reduction.
I'll go back to the example that you referred to. Adding wind generators in Quebec does not reduce carbon intensity. Whereas every kilowatt-hour represents 912 grams of emissions in Quebec, it represents 10 grams in Quebec. In New Brunswick, we have 912 grams because we have thermal power stations. By closing a thermal power station to replace it with the corresponding energy from Quebec, we'd achieve reductions in the order of one million tonnes without any difficulty.
Bloc
Marcel Lussier Bloc Brossard—La Prairie, QC
Mr. Villeneuve, and yet, responsibility in Europe is territorial; each country is responsible for...
Biologist, University of Quebec at Chicoutimi
There are two major differences between Europe and us. The first is that Europe has included under its umbrella countries from the former Soviet Union which had already achieved reductions. For example, East Germany had practically acquired half a billion tonnes, which enabled Germany passively to achieve part of its objective. The same is true of Hungary and the Baltic states.
Second, in Europe, every country has a differentiated target under that umbrella, as a result of which, overall, some countries will be able to increase, others decrease. That means that territorial responsibilities are being met and fairness is being achieved between the less developed countries of Europe and the more developed countries, that is to say those that have more trouble with renewable energies and those that have less trouble in that regard. This is an approach that Canada should have adopted from the outset, but about which the people in position at the time had political reservations. This is a subject I won't discuss here.
Bloc
Marcel Lussier Bloc Brossard—La Prairie, QC
You also targeted the Bécancour power station as one of the most polluting stations in Quebec, one million tonnes a year.