Environment Committee on Jan. 30th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

I call the meeting to order. We have a piece of business just before....

Mr. Regan, you'll be particularly interested in my first announcement. I have talked to members of the Liberal Party and Conservative members about getting our esteemed people who were at the Bali meeting to come here. Everyone wants them to come. I'm proposing that we ask our clerk to send a letter inviting them here. I would suggest this be right after our last scheduled meeting—I think it's on the 11th—and that they be asked to appear at the meeting following that. I trust that meets with everybody's approval. We will wait and see our response and if we need to do anything further, but I think this will certainly satisfy the requests I've had.

I've met with our speakers, and I certainly want to welcome you to this session on Bill C-377. The order we'll go will be: Mr. Rutherford, Mr. Stone, Mr. Weaver, and then Mr. Sauchyn. By their agreement, they've asked that that be the order we follow.

My intention is that at 5:15 p.m. we then deal with the motion of Mr. Scarpaleggia. That would give us 15 minutes, and then I think members are aware we have a vote when the bells start at 5:30.

That would be our procedure.

I would ask our guests to be as brief as possible. I do have a little grey box that most of you are certainly familiar with, so I will know how long you have been. Certainly I'd ask you to keep it to within five, seven, eight minutes, or thereabouts, so that we have maximum time for questions.

We'll start with Mr. Rutherford, please.

[Ian Rutherford, Executive Director, Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I'd like to bid you all good afternoon and thank you for requesting this appearance by the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, which I am representing today.

CMOS is the national society of individuals and organizations dedicated to advancing atmospheric and oceanic sciences and related environmental disciplines. We're the major non-governmental organization serving the interests of meteorologists, climatologists, oceanographers, limnologists, and a whole slew of scientists across the country. We have more than 800 members from research centres, universities, private corporations, and government institutes. Many of the scientists involved in leadership positions within the IPCC review process are members of CMOS.

The Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, which is associated with CMOS, will distribute $110 million between now and 2010 in the form of research grants to university researchers in atmospheric and climate sciences. Funding for that foundation runs out in 2010. We would certainly like to see it continue.

As many members know from our previous appearance before this committee, CMOS endorses the IPCC process and its conclusions. We urge all segments of Canadian society to act upon the recommendations that flow from the science revealed by that process.

This bill would seem to be a step in the right direction. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which Canada has ratified, requires nations to act in such a way as to avoid what's called dangerous anthropogenic interference, or DAI, with the climate system, without actually defining what that is. Hence, much of the work of the IPCC has dealt with quantifying the extent of human interference with the climate system and its consequences for local climates, and the impacts of those changes on local ecosystems, both natural and managed. This has refined our knowledge of the likely consequences of human-induced climate change and helped us understand which of those should be considered dangerous.

The IPCC has also refined estimates of the probability of various outcomes, and hence it has improved our understanding of risk, which is defined as probability times outcome. We think that risk analysis should be the basis for all policies dealing with risk.

In 2005 the U.K. hosted an international conference in Exeter on avoiding dangerous climate change. Papers at that conference took us closer towards a definition of dangerous interference, in terms of what is dangerous to whom and by how much. The result was that there's now a long list of outcomes, both global and local, linked to various degrees of warming, which make clear that even the amount of climate change already experienced satisfies the definition of dangerous to at least some people, somewhere, on the globe.

Some of these physical outcomes, such as a shutdown of the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation or a collapse of the ice sheets of Antarctica or Greenland, may well have thresholds or tipping points, while others may simply become more and more serious as time goes on. So the judgment of what is dangerous really depends on what you are interested in, who you are, and where you are.

Both the Exeter conference and the recent fourth assessment report of the IPCC provide strong evidence that a global temperature change larger than about two degrees Celsius from pre-industrial values should be avoided in order to avoid what we've called DAI. The science provides a way to link that value with a range of values of CO₂ concentration or, equivalently, to link a target value of CO₂ concentration with a range of values of temperature change, with probabilities for values within the range. Finally, the science provides a way to link the target value of concentration with the mission targets that must be achieved.

The result is that there's reasonably good agreement that in order not to exceed this two degrees Celsius limit with at least a 50% probability, the atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration should not be allowed to exceed about 450 parts per million, except perhaps for a temporary overshoot—but it should be temporary. In order to assure that, global emissions need to be reduced—and the estimates vary from about 40% to 95%—from the levels they were in 1990. Large reductions are certainly required, but there's still a fair amount of uncertainty.

The so-called annex one countries--that is, the developed countries--according to the IPCC, should reduce their emissions by about 80% by 2050 and even further after that.

It's also clear that the sooner emissions are reduced in the short term, the easier the targets will be to achieve. In fact, the price of delay beyond, I would say, 10 or 15 years will be failure because you simply won't be able to reach the target. The target is not easy to reach. It's going to require a number of different measures. There's no one measure that will solve it. A number of new technologies and a number of existing technologies will have to be deployed.

Some will argue that because Canada only contributes about 2% of global emissions right now, it won't make much difference what we do. Why should we feel any great obligation to solve a problem created largely by others? However, on the basis of emissions per capita, Canada is the worst performer in the world, and getting worse with every increase in energy expenditure required to extract bitumen from the Alberta tar sands and upgrade it to synthetic crude oil.

But it's not just our current performance that is bad. In terms of accumulated per capita contribution to the present burden from the start of the Industrial Revolution to the present, Canada ranks just behind the U.S.A., the U.K., and Germany and well ahead of Russia, Japan, and China. So we're already major contributors to the current problem, and if we continue on our current path we'll soon be the worst in the world in terms of accumulated per capita contribution. We're not in a good position to argue that others should solve the problem. We have to do our part.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you, Mr. Rutherford.

Mr. Stone.

[Professor John Stone, Adjunct Professor, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Carleton University, As an Individual]

Thank you for the opportunity to again appear before you and to share with you some of the scientific understandings regarding the increasingly urgent need to address the threat of climate change. Much of what I have to say is contained in the recently completed IPCC fourth assessment report. My remarks will focus on the long term but also on the immediate future.

In general, decision-making concerning the appropriate level and pathways for greenhouse gas emission reductions will be an iterative and, as Ian mentioned, risk management process. An explicit long-term goal is regarded as being absolutely essential. Without such a goal, none of us--individuals, businesses, or other levels of government--have a clear direction for policy and action. Such a goal must be strong enough to stimulate the necessary ambition.

One also needs short- and medium-term objectives from which it is still possible to reach the desirable long-term goal. Once each short-term objective is reached, decisions on subsequent steps can be made in the light of new knowledge and the decreased levels of uncertainty.

Now, ideally, the choice of a long-term goal is the product of solid science and wise political decision-making. The science can inform the process, but in the end, it depends on what we value, and this is best determined through a political process.

To illustrate, we can consider a table from the IPCC Working Group II summary for policymakers, which I've distributed to each of you. I'm grateful for your indulgence in allowing me to distribute it only in English. I do apologize; it is also available in French on the IPCC web page, and I will give the details of that to the clerk.

The table brings together what we know about some of the anticipated climate change impacts across several key sectors--water, ecosystems, food, coasts, and health--as a function of globally increasing temperatures. As you go from left to right, the impacts occur at higher temperatures. If you value biodiversity, for example, you can see that a temperature rise above one degree Celsius could lead us to losing about 30% of species.

Many people who have looked at such diagrams and others have come to the conclusion, based again on value judgments, that we should avoid an increase of more than two degrees Celsius above 1990 levels. This is the goal adopted by the European Union and much discussed in Bali recently.

To understand what we would have to do to achieve this goal, we need to look at some of the so-called stabilization scenarios in the IPCC Working Group I contribution. It is estimated that if we are able to stabilize concentrations of all greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at the equivalent of 445 to 490 parts per million of CO₂, then we could limit global mean temperature increases to between two and 2.4 degrees Celsius. That's above pre-industrial levels.

Such a stabilization level--that's roughly, as I said, 450 parts per million of CO₂ equivalent--implies concentrations of carbon dioxide alone in the order of 350 to 400 parts per million, which can be compared to today's level of 380 parts per million.

So we're clearly not going to be able to meet this goal without some overshoot from which we will have to recover. In order to reach this two degrees Celsius goal, it's estimated that global greenhouse gas emissions would have to peak before 2015 and be at least 50% below current levels by 2050, the middle of the century.

Now, these are global numbers, and indeed achieving these low emission scenarios requires a comprehensive global mitigation effort.

The IPCC's fourth assessment report contains, in one of the chapters, some estimates of what this would mean for industrialized countries. Countries like Canada would need to reduce emissions by 2020 by somewhere between 20% and 40% below 1990 levels and in 2050 by approximately 60% to 95%. These ranges cover levels suggested in the bill under examination.

Emissions in developing countries, on the other hand, would also have to be reduced. They would have to start to be below the current business as usual emission pathways by 2020 and be substantially below this pathway by 2050. Scenarios with such global greenhouse gas emission reduction targets will require increased energy intensity and carbon intensity improvements of somewhere in the order of two to three times historical values.

Let me switch to the other end of the spectrum and talk about what we have to do now. Very simply, in my view, time is running out. What we do in the next decade or so will be critical to tackling the long-term threat of climate change. For example, the locking effects of infrastructure technology and product design choices that were made by industrialized countries in the post-Second World War period, when we had low energy prices, are responsible themselves for our current increases in greenhouse gas emissions.

Delaying decisions will seriously constrain opportunities to achieve future low emission levels and they will raise the risk of progressively more severe climate change impacts. It's been estimated that with each 10-year delay in a mitigation, it implies an additional 0.2 degrees to 0.3 degrees warming over a 100- to 400-year time horizon.

There is already, at the present time, an additional 0.6 degrees of additional warming in the bank because of our previous activities, so decisions to delay emission reductions are likely to be more costly and more risky.

To conclude, Mr. Chairman and members, let me quote from the speech by the chairman of the IPCC at this year's Davos meetings in Switzerland:

There would be dramatic loss of political power and influence for nations that stand unmoved by the growing global consensus for “deep cuts” in emissions of GHGs with a sense of urgency.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you.

Now we'll go to Mr. Weaver.

I trust you can hear me. Welcome. I trust the weather is better in Victoria than in most of the rest of the country.

[Dr. Andrew Weaver, Professor and Canada Research Chair, School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria, As an Individual]

It's beautiful here. I hope you can hear me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Yes, it sounds good.

[Dr. Andrew Weaver]

Wonderful.

Thank you very much for inviting me to provide some testimony here. What I would like to do is provide a bit of background with respect to a declaration that was put forward by scientists to Bali at the meeting that was held between December 3 and 14, 2007. This is a 2007 Bali climate declaration by scientists. I'll read it to you. It says:

The 2007 IPCC report, compiled by several hundred climate scientists, has unequivocally concluded that our climate is warming rapidly, and that we are now at least 90% certain that this is mostly due to human activities. The amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere now far exceeds the natural range of the past 650,000 years, and it is rising very quickly due to human activity. If this trend is not halted soon, many millions of people will be at risk from extreme events such as heat waves, drought, floods and storms, our coasts and cities will be threatened by rising sea levels, and many ecosystems, plants and animal species will be in serious danger of extinction.

The next round of focused negotiations for a new global climate treaty--within the 1992 UNFCCC process--needs to begin in December 2007 and be completed by 2009. The prime goal of this new regime must be to limit global warming to no more than 2ºC above the pre-industrial temperature, a limit that has already been formally adopted by the European Union and a number of other countries.

Based on current scientific understanding, this requires that global greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced by at least 50% below their 1990 levels by the year 2050. In the long run, greenhouse gas concentrations need to be stabilized at a level well below 450 parts per million, measured in CO2-equivalent concentration. In order to stay below 2ºC, global emissions must peak and decline in the next 10 to 15 years, so there is no time to lose.

As scientists, we urge the negotiators to reach an agreement that takes these targets as a minimum requirement for a fair and effective global climate agreement.

In my years as a climate scientist, since the 1980s, I have never before witnessed such a spontaneous coming together of scientists around the world. This declaration was put forward by a number of scientists at the University of New South Wales in Australia and was signed by between 200 and 250 of the world's top climate scientists. This is not something that was driven politically. It was not something that was driven by special interest groups. It was driven by the scientific community to try to feed into the Bali process--a process that seems to be ignoring what the scientific community is telling the world's leaders, including those leaders in Canada.

I'm speaking to you as the lead author of the IPCC's second, third, and fourth assessments, back in 1995, 2001, and more lately 2007. I'm also the chief editor of the Journal of Climate, which is the premier journal for publishing new scientific research in all aspects of climate science.

When we talk about Bill C-377, one of the key things you'll ask is whether 80% is the right number or whether 70% is the right number. I'm not going to speak to a particular number. What I can say is that any stabilization of greenhouse gases at any level requires global emissions to go to zero. There is no other option. To stabilize the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at any concentration that is relevant to human existence on the planet, we must go to zero emissions. The reason is that the only natural mechanisms for the draw-down of carbon dioxide on longer time scales occur through weathering of rocks, which happens on hundreds of thousands of year time scales, and the dissolution of carbon carbonates from the sediment of the ocean, which happens on tens of thousands of year time scales.

Things like the terrestrial biosphere saturate out this century and can no longer take up any more carbon dioxide. The ocean, as it warms, also begins to lose its effectiveness at taking out carbon dioxide.

So in order to stabilize, we must have global emissions go to zero. That's a big task, and it requires leadership. I'm hoping, as a Canadian, that we in Canada can show such leadership.

Another way of looking at this is that there has been a lot of focus in terms of emissions and a lot of focus in terms of stabilizing at a level of greenhouse gases. The climate system doesn't care about the emissions today or yesterday; what it cares about is accumulative emissions of carbon dioxide since pre-industrial times. We've put out about 458 billion tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere since that time, and it turns out if you want to not break the two-degree threshold with a 66% probability, we only have another 484 billion tonnes we can put out, and that's from now until eternity. We're putting it out at more than 10 billion tonnes a year, so you can see the challenge is large.

I'll end there and urge you to take this bill seriously and move toward implementing policies in Canada that will show leadership internationally.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you very much, Mr. Weaver.

We'll go on to Mr. Sauchyn. I know you came from somewhere where it was very cold today.

[Dr. David Sauchyn, Research Professor, Prairie Adaptation Research Collaborative, University of Regina, As an Individual]

In fact, it was minus 37 degrees Celsius this morning when I called for a cab and minus 52 degrees Celsius with the wind chill. So I'm enjoying the balmy weather in Ottawa; therefore I'd like to thank you for this opportunity to visit Ottawa again and to have some other meetings at the same time.

I represent an organization called the Prairie Adaptation Research Collaborative, which was created to inform decision-makers in the prairie provinces about the consequences of climate change.

The previous speakers have provided the strong scientific arguments for stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions. I will speak to the other scientific underpinnings of Bill C-377; that is, the statements in the preamble that refer to the scientific evidence for the impacts of increased levels of greenhouse gases and for the threats to the economic well-being, public health, and natural resources and environment of Canada.

A large number of facts and figures are available in the fourth assessment report of Working Group II of the IPCC in support of these scientific underpinnings. However, this IPCC report defines the scope and severity of the global problem; for a Canadian perspective, Natural Resources Canada has led, for the past two to three years, a major national scientific assessment of climate change impacts and adaptation. Within weeks, the Government of Canada will release this major scientific report that presents the synthesis and interpretation of more than 3,000 studies by more than 110 authors.

As the lead author of this report, and with the knowledge of the secretariat in Natural Resources Canada, I am able to report today that this assessment report makes it clear that significant impacts are occurring in all regions of Canada and that the number and severity of the impacts will continue to increase.

In addition to the urgent action required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow the rate of climate change, the national assessment notes the critical importance of adaptation.

Allow me to give just two examples, from the prairie provinces, of the consequences of climate change for two fundamental Canadian natural resources: trees and water.

With the recent and inevitable warming, Canada's boreal forest will change dramatically as a result of increased disturbance and moisture stress. In fact, as a result of global warming, the boreal forest has begun to change, impacting the communities and economies that depend upon it.

It's likely that the institutions of Canada have enough capacity to manage a forest that has undergone moderate change; however, without deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, scientific studies indicate that we will entirely lose the southern boreal forest. It will disappear, along with the economies that depend on it.

But the major concern for western Canadians is the threat of global warming to water supplies. With recent warming, water supplies in the summertime have begun to decline as runoff from snow melt has declined and shifted earlier into the spring and as summers have become longer and warmer.

Once again, some change is manageable. In fact, in some parts of western Canada where there are reliable water supplies, farmers have begun to capitalize on the longer, warmer summers. However, rising greenhouse gas emissions will cause regional warming and impacts on water resources that quickly create major challenges for sustaining the economies and communities of western Canada.

With the projected and recent increase in population and industry, especially in Alberta, the demand for water will soon exceed supplies from the conventional source of water, which is snow melt runoff from the eastern slopes of the Alberta Rockies.

The tipping point is very close. Climate change is closing the gap between water supply and water demand. In fact, in some river basins in southern Alberta, the water supplies are now fully allocated.

The most costly natural hazard in Canada is prairie drought. Of the five most damaging climate events in Canadian history, four are prairie droughts. The other is the ice storm of 1998. The most threatening scenario for people, especially on the prairies, is a prolonged drought, and as the climate warms, this scenario becomes increasingly probable.

Some government and industry leaders believe or have stated that taking strong action to reduce greenhouse gases will devastate economies. In fact, we heard just a couple of days ago from Premier Stelmach that reducing emissions in Alberta will shut down the oil sands. I would like for once to see the scientific evidence of this. I would like to see the factual support for this argument. It seems to be lacking.

In fact, careful studies have derived estimates of the cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Credible studies estimate the cost of stabilizing greenhouse gases is something on the order of one half to one and a half per cent of global GDP per year. I can refer you to one such study entitled A cost curve for greenhouse gas reduction, a global study of the size and cost of measures to reduce greenhouse gases by some consultants from Norway whose clients include 70% of Fortune magazine's most admired companies.

Although deep emission cuts will have economic, social, and perhaps political costs, the actions proposed in Bill C-377 are critical in terms of preventing a possibly devastating degree of climate change. Climate change and its consequences will almost certainly accelerate through the coming decades. We urgently need your leadership and federal policy to enable individuals, institutions, and communities to adapt to the impacts of climate change because already we are locked in to increasingly serious impacts in the immediate future.

A comprehensive climate change strategy is required to avoid the adverse consequences of climate change and to address the influence of human activities on the climate of Canada, the impacts, the risks and opportunities, and the necessary adjustments to public policy, resource management, engineering practices, and infrastructure design.

Public policies must be developed to enable adaptation, to discourage maladaptation, and to build adaptive capacity. Already the provinces are developing and releasing climate change plans and announcing targets. Yesterday in Vancouver, I read today, the western premiers signed an agreement for collective action to deal with climate change impacts on Canada's water and forests.

Also, some local governments, and industry and communities, are taking aggressive action. The federal government must play a crucial coordinating and enabling role. Without decisive national action and policy, there is the risk that federal politicians will lag far behind. Federal policy-makers are at risk of failing us at every level, regional, national, and on the world stage, and in the meantime the provincial governments are taking action.

I speak for many scientists when I conclude that Canada can and must take action now on climate change. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Good. Thank you very much. We'll go to the questioning now.

Mr. Regan.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and let me thank the witnesses for appearing today, both here and remotely.

Let me begin by asking Dr. Sauchyn to refer the committee to the consultants in Norway who have looked at the cost of stabilizing global emissions. I think you said between one half and one and a half per cent of global GDP? Is that correct?

[Dr. David Sauchyn]

Yes, the low end was actually six-tenths of one per cent of annual GDP and the high end was one and a half per cent of global GDP annually, and this was a study by McKinsey & Company, a major consulting firm.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

If we need more information on that, perhaps the clerk could get that from you after the meeting at some point.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

I'm asking for it as well.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

[Dr. David Sauchyn]

I would like to add that there are various studies that have made similar conclusions.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you.

Could you describe for us the kinds of changes in Canada that would need to be made. I obviously don't expect you to detail all of them because there are things we don't know and technological solutions that haven't yet been found that would hopefully be applied to solve some of these problems, but in your mind, and I'm asking all of you this, in terms of doing this fast enough--we've heard about, for instance, having to stabilize by 2015--what does a Canada look like in which we have taken the actions necessary to do that? And I won't bring in what does the globe look like, what do all the countries look like, because that's another question. For the moment, let's just focus on our own responsibilities here. What kind of Canada does that mean?

[Prof. John Stone]

I can perhaps start and try to answer that.

First I'll refer you to a recent study that was done by the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy I guess maybe a year ago. They looked at that, and to my reading it's still a great country with as much opportunity as we have now but with different opportunities, and with fulfilling lifestyles but different lifestyles. It will mean changes. It will mean changes in the cars we drive, in the way we build our cities, and in the way we travel. It will make differences to our industries and the way they are driven, and it will make a difference to the fuels we use. All of that is quite possible without a drop of living standard, as Professor Sauchyn said, and there are estimates that this can be achieved with quite small annual reductions in GDP, smaller than the normal rounding error of any estimates of annual GDP increases.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Perhaps others wish to respond, and if they do I don't want to...I'll give you that opportunity now.

Some of those who in the past argued against taking any really drastic action have argued that temperatures are going to rise regardless of whatever we do, and we're not even sure what's causing it. How do you respond to those kinds of arguments that seem specious to me? I'd like to hear your reaction to those.

[Dr. Andrew Weaver]

I'd be happy to address that, if you wish.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Go ahead.

[Dr. Andrew Weaver]

Those arguments are simply incompatible with our scientific understanding of what's going on. People can say whatever they want to say, but unfortunately that's not consistent with the science. The science is quite clear. There is not a debate within the scientific community as to what has caused the warming; there is not a debate within the scientific community as to the level of cuts that are required to stabilize, and that is you need to get to zero emissions to stabilize because the time scales of removal are so long.

These people may have special interests, which is why they may be putting out those arguments. Some will turn around and say scientists have special interests, but I challenge you to tell me what the special interest of scientists would be, and it's not research grant funding because frankly we're not standing out saying we need more research grant funding because we don't understand the problem. We're saying we know what the problem is.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Would anyone else like to comment?

Go ahead, Mr. Regan.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

If not, I'll go on to my next question.

It seemed that going into the Bali conference the point of view of the Minister of Environment Canada, Mr. Baird, was essentially that the developing countries aren't doing enough about this, and we're not going to do anything until we get them online first. I'm just indicating what my sense of it was. Perhaps others have other views on this, and that's fine, it's a democracy.

How do you feel we should be dealing with the developing countries? What should our position be as we try to advance this cause and take action on it while at the same time trying to get action from countries like China and India, whose economies are growing very quickly and where they are using coal, fire, electricity, etc.?

Professor Rutherford.