Thank you.
Eventually, society will have to go to carbon neutrality if we wish to stabilize the greenhouse gases that are all in the atmosphere. The reason, of course, is that the natural removal mechanisms operate on a much longer time scale than the mechanisms for putting them into the atmosphere. So conservation and measures like that assist you in initially getting towards the path of turning the corner. Unfortunately, conservation measures by themselves are not sufficient to actually move down the path toward decarbonization, which must occur this century.
What is required is real legislation, legislation with teeth, using the powers the government has at hand. They can use taxation or just law. For example, in the province of British Columbia it is now illegal--or it will be introduced shortly--to get electricity through the combustion of coal without having 100% capture of emissions. I recognize the difficulty with national energy policies, but such a policy should be in place in Canada.
In terms of transportation, we are driving around cars that basically have technology that is more than 100 years old. The only reason we have such technology is not because we don't know how to make better cars. It's simply because we're afraid of change, and we're sustaining an end-use marketplace for a commodity that has a lot of vested interest in ensuring that the marketplace is sustained. What I mean by that is that if you had stringent tailpipe emission standards, again, as is happening in B.C. and California, and if you actually got people to buy in, you could see change. There's no reason why most of the cars on our roads are not electric.
We should have the widespread introduction of things like nuclear power in areas that don't have access to renewables like wind and hydro.
So there are many things in place. What we need is legislation. We need government regulation, and we need people to take the bull by the horns on this issue, because nobody, frankly, is doing anything in Ottawa. And that's not the case with this government only; it's been over the last decade.