Environment Committee on Nov. 21st, 2006

[Luc Harvey, Conservative, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mark is giving him some of his time, but he’s being stingy and he isn’t leaving me much time. So, I’ll have to ask you to give me very brief answers.

We have seen the effects of global warming and we understand that we have to act. That has been done. However, we haven’t talked enough about solutions. I would like to know whether you are aware of technology or initiative that gives us reason to believe that we can start reducing emissions now in various industries, including the automobile and energy sectors? I would like to start with Mr. Burton. Do we have access now to technologies to help us do this?

[Dr. Ian Burton]

Do we have all the technology we need to achieve that? No. Can we develop it? Yes. Will it take us some time to develop it? Yes. Can we sooner or later wean ourselves off fossil fuel or a carbon emission economy? Yes, it will take time.

[Luc Harvey, Conservative, Louis-Hébert, QC]

How much time?

[Dr. Ian Burton]

Half a century.

[Luc Harvey, Conservative, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Sauchyn.

[Dr. David Sauchyn]

We have lots of technology. Technology is not the only solution. There are many behavioural adjustments and institutional adjustments. There are lots of solutions; government simply has to enable them.

[Kory Teneycke]

I would agree with the 50-year number. I think it's at least that amount of time.

The challenge for policy-makers is that there's not enough money both to fund that technology development and transition your economy and to spend money on foreign credits. There are just not enough resources to do both. That's one of the challenges. If you're designing credit trading systems, you need to address that.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Monsieur Cleland, rapidement.

[Michael Cleland]

I would agree with most of the previous speakers. I think that 50-some-odd-year timeframe is right for getting, I would argue, emissions to that 50% or 60%, or whatever percentage we're talking about. Whether that eliminates the use of fossil fuels is another matter—I doubt it—but whether we can manage the carbon emissions is conceivable. We can see most of the technologies from where we sit today. A lot needs to be done to develop them further, to make them more economic, and to actually get them in place.

[Luc Harvey, Conservative, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Under the Kyoto Agreement, Canada’s target is to reduce CO₂ emissions by 6%, while Australia’s target is over 10% and China has no targets. Mr. Burton, what do you think of Canada’s targets vis-à-vis Canada’s real capacity to reduce emissions?

[Dr. Ian Burton]

Canada's targets, which we agreed to under Kyoto when we signed and ratified it, were a bit of guesswork. They were not very thoroughly researched and understood. I don't think we really understood what we were committing ourselves to.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Monsieur Sauchyn.

[Dr. David Sauchyn]

I agree.

[Kory Teneycke]

No further comment.

[Michael Cleland]

Yes, I would have to agree with that. We have to understand the Canadian economy if we're going to get this right.

[Luc Harvey, Conservative, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Teneycke, we couldn’t hear your answer.

[Kory Teneycke]

I said I have no comment different from that. I don't think we had any conception, at the time we signed Kyoto, of what it meant. In terms of trying to meet it now, I think the only way to do it is by buying foreign credits, and I don't see government revenues being large enough both to fund this technological investment and transition and also to export billions of dollars a year to buy foreign credits. I just don't see how you can do both, unless you're going to decide you're not going to fund something else of great importance, such as health care. There's just not enough money.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you, Mr. Harvey.

Now we'll go to Mr. Scarpaleggia in the second round, for five minutes.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just to follow up on the discussion that had been started on the carbon tax, I found out to my surprise a couple of weeks ago when I attended a symposium at which one of the speakers was one of the leading experts on biofuels, from Georgia Tech university, that in fact many large companies in the United States—and I assume that means oil companies—have already calculated the carbon tax in their revenue projections and so on. I think that's an interesting point.

But going back to Mr. Cleland's original point, which was that we're wasting time focusing on Kyoto when we could be doing more productive things, personally I think we've wasted years trying to debunk the fact that climate change is happening. We're wasting more time trying to debunk the Kyoto accord.

To me, the Kyoto accord is in many ways like a flame around which the international community can come together. If there had been no Kyoto, would we have a climate change plan in the province of Quebec that, despite some shortcomings, has been lauded by experts? Would we even have a Clean Air Act? It wasn't more than a couple of years ago that members of the then opposition Conservative Party were still trying to debunk the fact that climate change was anthropogenic. Without Kyoto objectives, it appears we won't be able to get a Montreal emissions credit trading system up and running.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

I have a point of order. The honourable member knows very well that there's nothing stopping the Montreal exchange from setting up a carbon trading market similar to Chicago. There's nothing stopping that. That is just for clarification.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

That is actually debate, Mr. Warawa.

Let's carry on. Mr. Scarpaleggia, please.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

I agree, Mr. Cullen, that bottom-up and top-down should meet at some point. I remember when the United States said they were going to go to the moon in eight years, and all of a sudden scientists turned to each other and said, well, how are we going to do that? But it happened.

My question is to Mr. Sauchyn. You deal with adaptation. Are you familiar with the Canadian Climate Impacts and Adaptation Research Network, C-CIARN?

[Dr. David Sauchyn]

Yes, very familiar. In fact, our research institute was the first node in C-CIARN.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

The previous government followed a dual track. We aimed at mitigation, but we also invested in research aimed at adaptation, but my understanding is that C-CIARN's funding has been interrupted, if not killed.

[Dr. David Sauchyn]

That's correct. C-CIARN expired last March. It was resurrected in June, but only for 10 months, so it will expire again.