Environment Committee on June 19th, 2007

[Prof. Mark Jaccard]

I was told that I would be called. I got an e-mail message from someone named Jamie MacDonald, a former student of mine.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

It was John Godfrey's office, just for the record, and I guess that's why you weren't aware of the topic today.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

On a point of order, we just passed a motion, which was a study on a post-G8 debrief and Canada's position within the broader international context, and that includes obviously, as we've said in previous motions, how we're doing domestically in terms of our credibility. That is the connection between the two.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Godfrey, I've indicated that we're going to have a fairly broad topic because of the difficulty of not having a chair, of the clerk not being able to call Dr. Jaccard, and so we'll just carry on. That would be to the benefit of all of us.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you, Chair, and hopefully that didn't go into my time.

The point I want to make is that I really do appreciate the work Dr. Jaccard has done. I bought his book. I respect him greatly. But what happened today, Dr. Jaccard, is that you were invited by a member of the Liberal Party and not by the clerk, and there was some hanky-panky that went on. I apologize that it happened.

[Prof. Mark Jaccard]

I will point out that I was invited by the clerk last week and I got to sit and listen to you, but I didn't get a chance to appear. I don't know if that's relevant or not.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Yes, it was quite unfortunate. There was a non-confidence motion from the Liberals on the chair, which was very disappointing.

I want to bring this to your attention, just to make sure we're quoting this right. On April 13 of this year you wrote a letter to Minister Baird based on your analysis of Bill C-288, the Liberal Kyoto plan, and you wrote: “The general conclusion of this…document is that Canadian compliance with its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol is likely to trigger a major economic recession. From what I understand of our legal options for compliance with Kyoto and my knowledge of the energy-economy system, I concur with this conclusion.” You also wrote that in order to meet the targets contained in Bill C-288 an extremely high greenhouse tax or regulated greenhouse cap would be required and this would shock the economy. You also wrote: “The modelling method of estimating the cost of Kyoto compliance appears sound to me.”

Is that correct? Am I quoting that correctly?

[Prof. Mark Jaccard]

Yes, you are.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

It was interesting that Mr. McGuinty said in the House on April 20 that the report on Bill C-288 was full of misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, ridiculous assumptions, and glaring omissions.

The leader of the Bloc said on April 23 that the basic premise behind the report on the cost of Bill C-288 was biased. The leader of the NDP called your analysis of Bill C-288 bogus, irresponsible, and incomplete. That was quoted in the Ottawa Citizen , and it said that it deliberately deceives the Canadian people about the impact of Kyoto obligations.

I just bring that to your attention. There has been a lot of rhetoric recently, and I appreciate your encouragement that we move forward. If we're all pulling in different directions, it makes it difficult to move forward on the environment. Canada's new government is committed to moving forward.

I appreciate your work on the National Round Table on the Environment and your comments today. Thank you so much.

[Prof. Mark Jaccard]

If I could respond, my point will simply be that I appreciate your comments and I'm hoping to continue to be a voice for how we can have good policy design. I know it is difficult. Politics gets in the way. But we need to get to good policies, and so I'm trying to make sure I give a consistent message regardless of how that falls in terms of the different political interests.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you very much, Dr. Jaccard. We certainly appreciate your being here and your testimony.

I believe your time is up, and we're going to carry on, so thank you very much for appearing today.

[Prof. Mark Jaccard]

Thank you for having me. Goodbye.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Goodbye.

Mr. Drexhage, you've been witness to the last half hour. We'll try to conduct it in much the same way. We'll ask for a brief presentation from you and then we'll go to members with whatever time we have left and get one round in. That should work.

Thank you very much for being here today.

[John Drexhage, Director, Climate Change and Energy, International Institute for Sustainable Development]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I will focus my comments on how Canada's current climate change efforts and commitments fit into the evolving international global climate change regime.

I think one of the first things that struck me in looking at the summit declaration...and I would urge all members to not just look at the climate change section part. I think this is one of the big mistakes we often fall into, where we see climate change as some kind of discrete environmental issue out there. We really have to see it in the context of overall economic development and investment patterns.

I was quite struck by the title of the summit declaration, Growth and Responsibility in the World Economy. It's a well-chosen title. It captures the central challenge that faces us over this century.

On the one hand, there is no doubt that economic growth will continue to be a critical factor in helping alleviate the circumstances of the world's poor, who, at last count, still number more than two billion people. On the other hand, we are coming face to face with the fact that development has its limits, and that first through climate change, but only first, are we directly experiencing the global limits of unrequited growth.

Unfortunately, the declaration doesn't explicitly address that central tension. In fact, if anything, it papers it over, implying that somehow the two goals of economic growth and environmental protection are naturally complementary. In fact, as we all know, they are not, and to make them complementary calls for hard, innovative thinking, of which we are only beginning to scratch the surface.

Successfully addressing climate change requires a serious rethinking of how we approach policy development and implementation towards more integrated, adaptive models. In that respect—and again I ask members that they take a look at the entire statement—it was disappointing to see that the G8 section on investment spent so little attention on the implications of investment on climate change.

One of the critical instruments in setting a sustainable future is through global investment patterns. Legend has it that when Chairman Mao was asked if the French Revolution was a success or failure, he replied that it was too early to tell. I would suggest the same thing in regard to evaluating the Kyoto Protocol. Its success should not be so much judged according to how many countries actually met their specific targets, but more as to how effectively it served as a platform for launching a radical redirection of foreign direct investment in clean energy globally.

I'm in complete agreement with Dr. Jaccard. The major achievement of Kyoto was setting an international value on carbon. The challenge that faces us for post-2012 is setting a price high enough and broad enough to seriously influence investment decisions by the private sector.

One thing I would definitely commend the authors of the G8 summit and the agreement on, and Germany for originating it, was for integrating the issues of climate change, energy efficiency, and energy security. I'm afraid to say that Canada is far from achieving such an integrated national response. We have been for the last 30 years...and I would argue that it is probably more incumbent on Canada than almost any other major G8 country. given that we continue to rely so extensively on fossil fuel exports for our economic prosperity and we continue to plan to do so over the next half of this century. Yet Canadians also want their governments to be global leaders in addressing climate change, and politicians of all stripes and jurisdictions insist on Canada becoming a global clean energy leader.

I'm not saying there aren't solutions out there. There are, but they need careful development and management on a national scale. In that respect, I would strongly and humbly urge the Prime Minister to convene a federal, provincial, and territorial meeting of energy ministers to launch a national dialogue on Canada's sustainable energy future that will actively engage industry and civil society. We must not allow the energy policies, misguided or otherwise, of a government of 35 years ago now to determine a lack of direction on so critical an issue today.

I certainly commend the summit declaration's focus on energy efficiency, and the same can be said on energy security. I do, however, caution that we be careful when we're trying to find complementarity between energy security and climate change.

I was, in particular, a lead author with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change specifically looking at the issue of energy security and climate change, and it is clear that the literature shows that while there may be some similarities and some aligned interest between the two issues, this is far from assured. For example, energy security issues in the U.S. vis-à-vis not relying on Middle East oil are not only working to increase investments in renewables; they are also, of course, working to increase reliance on non-conventional fossil fuel sources, such as the oil sands and gasified coal.

Now to the issue that probably is foremost in everyone's mind, and that's the issue of the long-term targets identified in the G8 summit declaration and Canada's place in that discussion. The question that needs answering on emission targets is twofold: what will it achieve environmentally, and what will be the impact to the economy of such measures?

There is growing pressure originating in Europe, but building around the globe, that anything greater than a 2° centigrade change from pre-industrial levels would represent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the global climate system. This would require global emissions levelling off within the next 15 years and 50% reductions in global emissions by 2050.

In that respect, the long-term global target supported by Canada is 50% reductions by 2050, seemingly consistent with both the EU and Japan. However, is it? Remember that the declaration also reconfirms very explicitly the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and capabilities among all countries. This principle in reality then implies to much of the outside world, particularly in the EU, that in order to reach a 50% global reduction, developed countries, including Canada, would need to reduce their emissions at a much higher level than 50% by 2050. Many estimate a level as high as 80% to 90% for OECD nations.

Is such a target achievable, let alone feasible, for Canada? In my estimation, yes, but it will require at least two strong policy initiatives. First of all, there must be a nationwide commitment to clean energy initiatives, including energy efficiency, carbon capture and storage, and a clean east-west energy grid. And setting a value on carbon is the first mechanism to make that happen.

Secondly, at that rate of reduction, it is simply unrealistic to expect Canada to reach such reduction targets through domestic measures alone. The Canadian private sector must become an active player in the global carbon market, and the Government of Canada needs to provide much clearer signals and incentives for Canadian industry to do so.

In that respect, I was very pleasantly surprised at the prominence of carbon markets in the declaration. Ironically enough, it was Canada and the United States, along with Australia and New Zealand, that were the original champions of emissions trading. Hopefully we will soon see them come fully aboard again. Let's not forget the message of the Stern report, that a global carbon market is absolutely crucial in ensuring that the transition to a clean energy future is as cost-effective as possible.

During my travels over the last few years to Europe, Asia, and Africa, I heard a couple of common messages regarding climate change in Canada. On the negative side, there was a growing concern with Canada's credibility gap. We talk the talk, but we have a very difficult time walking the walk. However, on the opportunities side, there is also a keen awareness that Canada is not too dissimilar from rapidly growing major economies in developing countries, and that it is precisely countries like Canada that must be amongst the first to show that one can break the link between greenhouse gas emissions and economic growth. If Canada, with its relatively mature economic and social support networks in place, can't pull it off, how in heaven's name can we expect China or India to deliver?

Mr. Chairman, I have a final comment on the overall tone of the post-Kyoto negotiations. On the one hand, I am heartened by the joint statement of the G8+5, and in particular its recognition of the seriousness and urgency of the issue, and I'm quite relieved to see a major recommitment to the UN process, including by the U.S. in its offer to host a meeting of major emitters later this fall. Still, we are a long way off from any sort of rapprochement. Major developing countries are still resistant to any reduction commitments, and small wonder if you look at it from their perspective. I remind the members that the UNFCC reported that only six industrialized countries are actually on track in meeting their Kyoto reduction commitments, and so we could hardly say at this point that we're showing tremendous leadership.

While we in the developed world can certainly do much more, we also need to keep in mind that we live in a very different world from that of the framework convention of 1992 or even the protocol of 1997. So while we still have prevalent poverty in countries like China and India, there is no doubt they are also becoming our major economic competitors, and how we address that situation is going to be extremely critical.

I have one last thought on the dynamics of this particular G8 summit. One of the more striking things was the fact that those leaders among the most active in supporting strong actions and targets to address climate change, leaders such as Angela Merkel of Germany and Nicolas Sarkozy of France, hailed from conservative parties. In the U.K. the Conservative opposition leader is, if anything, more proactive on climate change than his Labour counterpart. In the United States it is Republican governors, not only in California but also in New York, and Republican leaders in the U.S. Senate, such as Senator McCain of Arizona, who are leading the charge in addressing climate change.

I think there is an important lesson here for the Canadian political process. Climate change is rapidly evolving into an issue beyond partisan politics in most OECD countries, and frankly, I think it is high time in this country that we took to heart some lessons from that policy maturation experience.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you, Mr. Drexhage, for your advice.

We are now down to five minutes and we'll go around as quickly as we can. At the end of the meeting I would like to get direction from members as to our meeting on Thursday, so perhaps you could keep that in mind for the end of our meeting. I understand Mr. Drexhage's time is limited as well, so as I say, we'll just go with five minutes.

I believe we're starting with Mr. Scarpaleggia and Mr. Rota.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We've heard a lot of talk since the new government--now not-so-new government--came into office. We've heard talk about liaising with the Americans and the Australians to talk about climate change, the implication being that the Kyoto process was not appropriate for Canada. Then we heard about strategies revolving around the G8 and the G8+5, again implying that Kyoto was somehow being sidelined.

What I'm sincerely trying to understand is this. How do we link up all these initiatives with the Kyoto process, and what is the role of the COP 11 in Montreal in 2005? I can't remember the number of the Conference of the Parties, but how do we link up what's been going on and what will be going on in Bali with what went on in December 2005 in Montreal?

I'd really like to understand how it all comes together.

[John Drexhage]

What the Montreal meetings managed to do was to keep alive a fully engaged discussion around post-2012 that engaged all parties, and I think that was its very important accomplishment. Now, the parties, particularly the United States, didn't agree that those kinds of discussions would actually represent a set of negotiations that would explicitly address what parties should do after 2012, but at least it kept the issue on the table. The last such informal dialogue is going to be taking place in Vienna at the end of August, and thereafter there has to be a decision made in Bali for actually launching a process for negotiations that would eventually...and the hope is that by 2009, when Denmark hosts it, there would actually be a regime put in place that would set out exactly what a party's reduction commitment should be.

I think the initiative in the United States now of 15 countries coming together, and the 15 major emitters, should not be seen necessarily as a negative thing. I think that in the summit declaration itself there is an explicit recognition that that summit that the U.S. will be holding will be directly fed into the Bali discussions.

The Bali discussions themselves will simply be like what happened at the Berlin Mandate in 1995. The Berlin Mandate set the terms for what the negotiations for commitments would be by parties, starting in 2008. This Bali declaration would again start that process.

So in other words, I don't see anything of a hugely substantive nature being reached at Bali. It will be what we call “deep process”. It will launch a process for eventual agreement on a commitments regime post-2012.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Rota, you have about two minutes.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll try to package everything into one question, and then I'll let you go.

I understand that your definition of the G8 declaration was “disappointing at best”. Now, when we look at Canada's position going into these negotiations regarding climate change and we look at the G8+5, how do you differentiate what they went in with, what was negotiated, and what they ended up with?

[John Drexhage]

Well, I think the overall objective of all the major parties in the G8 was to keep the U.S. in the tent. That was the overriding objective. Although it came at a bit of a price, particularly for those who wanted to have some specific targets set by the mid-century, at least that ultimate objective of keeping the U.S. in the tent and also the U.S. talking about the consideration of reduction targets needs to be appreciated for the accomplishment it is.

The one thing, for example, that I would really take, not necessarily exception to, but clarification with is Dr. Jaccard's comment about how he's seen these kinds of statements before. We've never seen these kinds of statements before from the Bush administration. We saw them before from the Clinton administration when they were part of the G8 process, but not from the Bush administration. Even though the Bush administration did not give a specific commitment to a numbered target for 2050, the fact that it did talk about actually participating in a regime where such a target would be the subject of negotiation did meet the minimum requirements that I think most people were hoping to get out of it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you.

Mr. Bigras.

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

Mr. Chair, I would like to ask one last question.

You do not seem to be so pessimistic about the negotiations at the G8. In fact, some analysts have said that there were three great achievements. First, the United States, although it has not agreed to set clear targets for 2050, committed itself to the fight against greenhouse gases in the final communiqué. Second, if I am not mistaken, the United States has also subscribed to the principle that negotiations be wrapped up at the beginning of 2009. Third, as you have indicated, even the United States supports the European and Japanese proposal to establish a framework for a carbon market. Everything is not doom and gloom, I have to say.

But there is a fundamental problem: the Americans have refused to buy into the idea of stabilizing our emissions at a level that would allow us to achieve the two degrees that are crucial for real progress in the fight against greenhouse gas emissions.

Did the G8 negotiations focus too much on secondary issues, whereas the basic problem is to stabilize our emissions and to make those two degrees a key concern? In Bali, how can we come to an agreement on this sensible European proposal that could be used as the basis for an international plan for combating climate change?

[John Drexhage]

There is no doubt that the discussion will continue to centre around a long-term target of the kind you were just describing, Monsieur Bigras. I do very much welcome the initiative, certainly in the sense of having a longer-term perspective on what it is we're setting out to achieve. I think one of the real problems with Kyoto was that we didn't do that. We just set some targets; we didn't say what the heck for.

At the same time, we really do have to do a lot of very strong and careful analysis about the whole two-degree issue. This calls for a huge global effort that has to begin immediately, so I can understand why you give this the urgency and immediacy that you do. I would hope that we first get them into the tent to begin discussing that. But I would doubt very much, whether or not I would prefer it, that in fact you could get countries to agree to that two-degree marker for Bali. Hopefully it will be something that can come out thereafter.