Evidence of meeting #25 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 targets.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Marcel Lussier Bloc Brossard—La Prairie, QC
That's well understood.
Mr. Jaccard, you talked about taxes and you said that the carbon tax could be between $120 and $150 a tonne. If you consider that every Canadian has a reduction objective of 10 tonnes per person, we'd be sending a bill for $1,500 to everyone in Canada starting tomorrow.
Professor, School of Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University
I don't understand your calculation.
Bloc
Marcel Lussier Bloc Brossard—La Prairie, QC
The carbon tax would be $150 a tonne, and every Canadian has to achieve a reduction of approximately 10 tonnes a year. As there are 30 million Canadians, that means a greenhouse gas reduction of 300 tonnes. If every Canadian has to reduce GHGs by 10 tonnes and you're levying a tax of $150 a tonne, you'd then be sending every Canadian a bill for $1,500 starting tomorrow.
Professor, School of Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University
I didn't do the calculation, but, in the book, I calculated the change in energy prices. That's often easier for people to understand. In the calculations that we did for the national process, we saw that the price of gasoline had virtually doubled and that the price of electricity had risen sharply, especially in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Bloc
Marcel Lussier Bloc Brossard—La Prairie, QC
Going back to taxes, you talked about carbon taxes that should be levied on businesses or individuals.
Professor, School of Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University
I didn't propose that.
Professor, School of Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University
No. I said that if a change had to be made over a 10-year period, then a high tax would be necessary as well. Over a period of 50 years, the maximum tax would perhaps be, within 40 years, $75 or $100 a tonne. Every Canadian's emissions would then be reduced considerably because of technological progress in anticipation of tax increases. The cost to Canadians would be much lower than that, having regard to technological progress and the threat of attacks that might increase. I'd even say that, in my view, energy consumption won't decline. It will cost Canadians less to make technological changes and to use forms of energy without greenhouse gas emissions, thanks to technologies such as emissions capture, than to reduce their energy consumption.
Bloc
Marcel Lussier Bloc Brossard—La Prairie, QC
Mr. Chiotti, you mentioned that inaction could cause a two percent to four percent decline in GDP. How do those figures compare to those of the Stern Report?
Air Program Director and Senior Scientist, Pollution Probe
That's a very good question. In reference to the Stern report, I think the global estimate was $7 trillion. I'm not sure how that compares because I haven't really done that kind of comparison, but the numbers for the Canada country study that recognizes our ten years--we're ten years later--were based upon U.S. and EU-type estimates.
So I assume the Stern report is very consistent with that, although my sense is that as soon as you start getting into more ecosystem, quality of life issues--non-market estimates--it's very difficult to put a dollar value on that.
Bloc
Marcel Lussier Bloc Brossard—La Prairie, QC
Thank you.
Mr. Bruce, you talked about the Great Lakes and the reduction in hydroelectric power production. You're starting point was Niagara Falls.
Does the 17 percent reduction you refer to include the Moses-Saunders and Beauharnois dam chain?
As an Individual
The 17% estimated reduction by mid-century in hydroelectric production in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence system includes not just Niagara, but St. Mary's, at Niagara, at Cornwall, at Beauharnois, and the other plants on the St. Lawrence River. So it's something that affects both Quebec and Ontario.
Bloc
Marcel Lussier Bloc Brossard—La Prairie, QC
Where does this 17 percent come from? I took part in the studies of the International Joint Commission, and we developed drought and increased precipitation scenarios for the Great Lakes. This is the first time I've heard about this 17 percent. What study does that come from?
As an Individual
It's in the study that's coming out on Monday next week. It's based on the studies you referred to, done for the International Joint Commission on Ouranos and the studies that were done on the impact of climate change on Great Lakes water quality.
They also estimated the changes in water quantity, levels of the lakes, and flow of the interconnecting channels and the St. Lawrence.
Bloc
Marcel Lussier Bloc Brossard—La Prairie, QC
In your analysis of the infrastructure costs caused by melting permafrost, do you have any figures on the CO2 emissions that the permafrost melt will cause?
As an Individual
The present state of research on that issue is that we would see a lot more methane coming out of the permafrost, which is a very powerful greenhouse gas, about thirty times as powerful as CO2, molecule for molecule. That would be what we call a positive feedback and would increase warming. For CO2, or carbon emissions, other than in methane, it looks like it would be a wash; it would not be a big change.
The other worrisome thing is that there is a lot of mercury in those permafrost areas, and as the permafrost melts, that mercury is going to come out into the Arctic Ocean and into the northern rivers and have a very serious additional impact on the native people who live in those areas.
Conservative
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
Thank you. I'll be sharing my time with Mr. Watson.
Again, I appreciate each of the witnesses being here, particularly Mr. Jaccard. I found each presentation interesting, but particularly yours.
I'm from British Columbia, from Langley. I like Simon Fraser University and I was up there a couple of weeks ago presenting the big cheque, so to speak, for the magnetic resonance spectrometer in the chemistry lab. So it was nice to be up at Simon Fraser again.
Having only five minutes, I'll try to make this short, and I would appreciate some short answers. We've heard from the environment minister that she believes we cannot meet the Kyoto targets. We've heard from the environment commissioner, who was here at the committee, who also believes that we will not meet the Kyoto targets. We heard from witnesses on Tuesday, particularly Mr. Villeneuve, from Quebec, who said that the Kyoto plan, actually Bill C-288, would have been a very good bill in 1998, but that it's too late, to which the Liberals and the Bloc laughed. We take this situation very seriously.
The government has introduced a bill, the Clean Air Act, which we believe is heading in the direction that will address everything that has been said today. Yet we are here talking about Bill C-288, a bill that should have been introduced when the Liberals were in government.
This is my first question to each of you, and if I could, I would like a simple yes or no answer. Considering the situation that Canada finds itself in, is it realistic? Do you think that we realistically could meet that Kyoto target that's being proposed in Bill C-288?
Professor, School of Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University
Before saying no, I just want to say that the next time you come to Simon Fraser University with a cheque, let me know and I'll meet you.
That wouldn't influence my answer to this question, which is no.
As an Individual
I'd like to side with Ken Ogilvie. If I think of our goal here, to get the developing countries on board, to get them reducing emissions, I think if we go into the negotiations come 2012 and don't show any progress towards the Kyoto targets, don't show any regulations or a plan in place to move towards emission reductions, we will never be able to persuade the developing countries to do it.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
Mr. Bruce, that's not my question. We're talking about Bill C-288. Do you think we can meet that target? This is what Bill C-288 is asking us to do.
As an Individual
I tend to agree with my colleagues, but I'm saying that unless we have something positive to lay on the table, we are in serious trouble in terms of future impacts on Canada.
