Environment Committee on Nov. 27th, 2007

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Colleagues, welcome to this meeting of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.

This meeting has been called pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) on the study of Canada's position in advance of the United Nations Climate Change Conference to be held in Bali next week.

First of all, I want to welcome our witnesses today, and I'm going to introduce them. From the International Institute for Sustainable Development, we have John Drexhage, who is the director of climate change and energy. From the Greenhouse Emissions Management Consortium, we have Aldyen Donnelly, the president. From the Pembina Institute, we have Matthew Bramley, the director of climate change. And from the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition, we have Barbara Hayes, national director.

Welcome to you all, and thank you for coming here today.

I propose that we start by allowing each presenter seven minutes. The time normally allowed is 10 minutes, but, in view of the fact that we have four guests, that would take 40 minutes.

Do you agree that each person should have seven minutes to make his or her presentation? Is that acceptable? Yes?

[An hon. member]

Can you explain that again, please?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Yes, I will.

The clerk has suggested to me that we ask the speakers to take seven minutes each for their presentations, allowing, therefore, more time for questions and answers. Normally we would do 10 minutes, and of course that could take 40 minutes with four speakers. So that's why this has been proposed to me, but only if it's acceptable to members of the committee.

Is that okay? Fine.

Then I'll ask each of you to make a presentation, if you would. We'll let you know when we're close to seven minutes and give you a little bit of warning.

Why don't we start with Ms. Donnelly.

[Aldyen Donnelly, President, Greenhouse Emissions Management Consortium]

First of all, thank you for inviting me to comment on the role that Canadian negotiators might play in the upcoming meeting in Bali.

I want to state my support for Prime Minister Harper's position, at least as I understand it, that the world does not need another international protocol that binds only a minority of the world's emitters to absolute greenhouse gas emission caps. I don't think the question is whether we need an international treaty on climate change--we do--the question is what shape the next generation of the Kyoto Protocol must take to address this global crisis.

I'd like to look to history to answer this question. All nations, developed and developing, have previously accepted, and so far complied with, binding national obligations to eliminate whole product lines and industries in a process designed to address a global environmental disaster. They did this to stop the erosion of the ozone layer under the international treaty construct known as the Montreal Protocol. The developed nations accepted the obligation to act first, as the developing nations have asked us to do in the greenhouse gas context. Developing nations agreed to binding targets without the promise of hot air credits, which is one of our stumbling blocks right now in the Kyoto context. As far as I know, all the parties have complied with their commitments under the Montreal Protocol, in spite of the fact that in the 1980s, when all the parties signed on, its driving objective was 70 years into the future. The Montreal Protocol belies the assertion that having a long-term target is an impossible objective to work with.

In the media and elsewhere, we periodically hear the Kyoto Protocol described as similar to, or modelled on, the Montreal Protocol. This characterization of the Kyoto Protocol is dangerously inaccurate. Structurally and procedurally, the two treaties could not be more different. If I were allowed to offer only one piece of guidance to Canada's negotiators, it would be to study the Montreal Protocol and figure out why it has been effective. I think the reasons for its effectiveness jump off the pages if you stare at them long enough. You should develop greenhouse gas equivalents of the essential elements of the Montreal Protocol and then pull every trick out of your negotiator handbook to encourage the parties to the Kyoto Protocol to entertain inclusion of these strategies in the Kyoto toolbox. The Montreal Protocol does not impose a quota-based supply management system on the parties.

The Kyoto negotiators have introduced elements of the U.S. acid rain program into the Kyoto construct, which elements do not appear in the Montreal Protocol. I think that's proving to be one of the great structural issues in the Kyoto Protocol. We may or may not talk more about that in your question period.

One primary reason that the Montreal Protocol has been so successful is because it directly creates demand for new sustainable products by regulating the sale—I underline sale—of the production of substances that on consumption create ozone-depleting gases. The drafters of the Montreal Protocol somehow understood that their primary objective had to put a global mechanism in place that would facilitate an orderly but highly accelerated capital stock turnover in the industries they were trying to affect. Meanwhile, in Kyoto, we keep going to meetings where people talk about trying to build the protocol around the existing capital stock turnover rate. The objective should be to implement actions that accelerate the stock turnover rate.

The key that the Kyoto negotiators need to shift to is easiest to illustrate with the ultra-low sulphur diesel regulation that was passed across North America last year. Last year, all over North America, we passed regulations that had a number of elements. The key elements were these. The first element says that after a certain date, which was last fall, you cannot sell high-sulphur diesel in North America. The second element says that after a certain date, which was four months prior to that date last year, you may not make high-sulphur diesel in North America.

With the Kyoto construct, in every domestic emission regulation that has been proposed in Canada to date, we have been saying to industry, “We're going to make you phase out the making of it, but we're not giving you the security of a prohibition on the sale of high greenhouse gas products.”

Every attempt we've made in the past that was successful at managing products out of our value chain started with regulating what can be sold, and only by first regulating what can be sold can we create the foundation that enables us to regulate what can be made.

If we, in our sulphur diesel regulation had said we're going to tell you that you can't make a high-sulphur diesel in Canada anymore, but we're not going to make any statement about what can be sold here, then all the refiners would have shut down their plants and supplied high-sulphur diesel into Canada from offshore. The fact is, when we gave them the protection of a made market for low-sulphur diesel, the average refiner spent $500 million per plant upgrading and retooling to make the more environmentally sustainable product.

I think it's essential that our negotiators go to Kyoto and, starting with the existing Kyoto construct, ask how we start to build the 10 essential product standards that make the market for the new products we want to see developed in our country and globally.

I'll stop there for now.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Drexhage.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak to members of the committee on the upcoming international negotiations on climate change at Bali.

First of all, while I'm aware that you heard from some eminent experts on the results of the IPCC's fourth assessment report last week, I would like to highlight some of the conclusions that are particularly relevant to the UN negotiations. It is also important to keep in mind the kind of role the IPCC played in the history of these negotiations. The first assessment report set the stage for the Framework Convention on Climate Change; the second report provided critical momentum towards the development of the Kyoto Protocol; and the third was released just prior to the protocol coming into force.

What specifically does the fourth assessment report contribute? In my view, some of the more critical conclusions are the following.

Evidence of global warming is now deemed as unequivocal.

The contribution of human activities to climate change is now deemed as 90% certain. This colossal environmental phenomenon is already deemed to have irreversible impacts under a 1.5-degree to 2.5-degree change. We're already locked into that sort of change. We're looking at global species at risk of 20% to 30%. Under a 3.5-degree change, which will require some very serious work on our part to keep it there, we're talking about 40% to 70% of our species being at risk. At risk of what? Extinction. We're not just talking about the plight of a few cute animals here. This has grave implications for human well-being. The vast majority of our crops depend on pollinators for germination. Microbes play a critical role in ensuring safe drinking water. Disrupt these ecological systems and you run the real risk of upsetting basic food chains that we all rely on.

Despite these grim conclusions, the report also states that there are many affordable actions available to reverse current emission trends, but that the price we place on carbon emissions will play a critical role in determining their range and depth.

The magnitude of the challenge we face in reducing our emissions is underscored by a recently released study by the International Energy Agency in its World Energy Outlook 2007. In particular, the expected rate of growth in developing country giants, particularly China and India, presents a challenge, the scale of which we have never faced. China will have become the world's number one greenhouse gas emitter this year. As little as five years ago we didn't think that would happen until 2020. India will be the third largest by 2015. To give you an idea of what I am talking about, from now to 2030, China is forecasted to install more electricity-generating capacity than currently exists in the United States. This is due to phenomenal economic growth taking place there, but it must be recognized that this is entirely justifiable. Fully 400 million people, for example, in India still do not have direct access to electricity.

Despite this growth, per capita emissions in those countries pale in comparison with North America. In that respect, Canada and the U.S., along with Australia, are in a completely different league from the rest of the world, with at least two times more emissions per capita than Europeans, four times the rate of those in China, and at least a full five to six times more than the average Indian.

The fourth assessment report also examined the effectiveness of the current international regime in addressing climate change. It rightly, in my view, concludes that the Kyoto Protocol played a critical role in laying the basis for a global response to the real threat of climate change. When it comes to the Kyoto Protocol, everyone's attention, particularly at the political level and with the media, is on the issue of targets.

Unfortunately, this tends to take away attention from where the protocol's real contribution lies. It placed a value on carbon and, by doing so, initiated a rapidly growing financial portfolio supporting clean energy investments worldwide from $27.5 billion U.S. in 2004 to over $100 billion U.S. this year, with a percentage increase in the hundreds. It established a set of rules and guidelines around climate change that frame the institutional accounting of greenhouse gas emissions, and it also stimulated a vast array of national responses to climate change in developing and developed countries, including in countries such as the United States and Australia, which did not choose to ratify the protocol.

What do all these lessons mean for Bali? It is clear that we simply cannot meet the environmental imperative of avoiding human interference with the globe's climate system without engaging all major emitters, but the lead must lie with developed countries who are most responsible for the current greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere and who, because of their relatively stable and prosperous social and economic conditions, are most able to take more aggressive actions.

In my view, this is particularly the case for North America, which, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions per capita, can accurately be described as a pariah when compared with the rest of the world. However, it also means that the terms set out in the Berlin mandate, which established the framework for the Kyoto Protocol negotiations some 12 years ago, are not set in stone. In particular, we cannot have a provision in a Bali mandate that reaffirms no additional commitments for developing countries. That said, this should not stop this government from agreeing to terms that require developed countries to take the lead in taking on binding, more stringent reduction commitments.

In fact, I would like to remind this committee that Canada, like all other Kyoto parties, has already accepted such conditions in a set of negotiations in which it is currently engaged. I am referring to the ad hoc working group on further commitments for annex one parties under the Kyoto Protocol. The negotiating process was launched at the Montreal conference two years ago and has been going on since then with, I stress, active Canadian government participation.

In the context of the Bali mandate, what is important is keeping the door open to include all major emitters. What I am proposing would provide the Canadian government with the space to precisely continue such discussions over the next two years.

As Aldyen has already mentioned, remember the real achievement of the Montreal Protocol. It successfully achieved commitments on the part of all our parties, but under a graduated scheme, giving developing countries ample time to adjust to these new global environmental prerogatives.

Why were parties able to be successful? First, developed countries not only took the lead in taking on commitments, but they also met and exceeded those targets. Secondly, and as important, if not more--which Aldyen didn't mention--is the success of the Montreal Protocol's multilateral fund in establishing a transparent and effective financing mechanism to help developing countries meet their commitments.

I would suggest we have much to learn from that Montreal Protocol experience. We have to show that Canada and all developed countries are putting serious regulatory frameworks and market signals in place. It also means that governments have to become more focused on how Canada can play its part in helping developing countries make the urgent and necessary transitions they will need to make in the face of climate change, both with respect to mitigation and adaptation.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

You have one more minute.

[John Drexhage]

We need to look at the strategies of the World Bank and other major aid agencies in how they're integrating climate change.

One final word. Keep in mind the relatively modest objective of the Bali mandate. We are talking about setting in motion a negotiating process for post-2012 that will, hopefully, be concluded in 2009, and it's important to demonstrate flexibility in that spirit.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Actually, Ms. Donnelly was a little short, so we're now about even. Thank you.

Ms. Hayes.

[Barbara Hayes, National Director, Canadian Youth Climate Coalition]

The committee may not be aware, but Canadian youth have had an impressive if informal history with the UN negotiations. From five youth at COP-6 in The Hague to the current youth delegation to Bali of 32, complete with logo, the Canadian youth movement, and indeed youth globally, has long recognized the importance of making the negotiations comprehensible and accessible to youth.

The reason youth have been so active is that although we are the largest effective constituency, we are not party to the UN negotiations. Spanning all countries, all emitters large and small, youth are inheriting a changed climate they haven't created.

Approximately 20% of the Canadian population is under the age of 18 and has no voting rights and no representation either domestically or as part of the international process. If a real negotiating mandate, including absolute targets and hard caps, is not achieved coming out of Bali, then these youth must shortly be counted among the growing number of people directly affected by projected climate impacts.

You do not have the right to make this decision for us. You must hear us. We are not given a say in this matter, so we are taking the microphone anyway. A year ago, at the age of 22, I helped to found the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition because with the levels of climate change we have already caused, I will spend the rest of my life dealing with adaptation and mitigation to a changed climate. It's a given.

The Canada of my adulthood will be fundamentally different from the current one as a result of global emissions. I do this work now as a young person because I don't want the global climate to be my daily concern when I am 40. My generation deserves a stable climate, and we deserve some peace of mind.

Ours is a future of fewer possibilities if Canada does not embrace and vigorously work to reach mandatory hard caps. My generation needs progress at the Bali negotiations to ensure that we have the opportunity to be participants in a strong and vibrant Canada.

My current view of the future holds fewer cultural and economic possibilities, the rapid spread of new diseases, increased incidents of extreme weather events, destabilized global politics, and hundreds of thousands of displaced persons.

Since the government has abandoned our Kyoto targets, we can no longer trust that our leaders are acting with our best interests at heart. We are now accustomed to being ashamed of our country's poor behaviour. The obstructionism we saw at the Commonwealth meeting is sadly no longer surprising. Canadian youth were present at the UN climate meetings in New York, Bonn, and Vienna this summer. We watched our government betray our future and our good name simultaneously.

It is unbelievable that hiding behind developing nations and watering down international commitments is being characterized as strong foreign policy. Undermining a clear, necessary, and internationally agreed upon treaty in favour of vague aspirational goals is frankly a failure of leadership.

The goals, even the legislative tools, are here, and still the government refuses to act. Watching the government try to wiggle out of the Kyoto implementation act has been gut-wrenching--

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

We're going to ask you to slow down a little bit for the interpreters, please. Thank you very much.

[Barbara Hayes]

Sorry.

The first step to reducing our emissions is actually to attempt to reduce our emissions. In order to reduce our emissions by the amount necessary, Bali must lead to a plan with firm reduction goals, strict penalties for violators, and a clearcut deadline for these changes.

We are not saying this is an easy task, but we are saying it is both necessary and achievable. It can't be the economic argument that prevents the government from taking action. It is a false and frankly increasingly dishonest choice. The Stern report on climate change estimated the global cost of runaway climate change could surmount the cost of the two world wars combined, crippling global GDP by 20%. He further estimated that acting to avoid the worst impacts of climate change would be only 1% to 3% of global GDP.

The longer you wait, the more it will cost us, and the less likely we are to adjust in time for Canada's industrial sector to take leadership. So to the current government's legacy of global destabilization and health crises and ecological devastation, you must add crippling economic depression.

Climate change is not just an environmental issue. When farmers' crops fail from unnatural droughts, it is a livelihood issue. When our grandparents die from heat waves, it is a health issue. When the animals people traditionally hunt are no longer there, this is a survival issue. When failing to act opens up the Northwest Passage, this is a sovereignty issue. When children can no longer play hockey on outdoor rinks, this is a cultural issue. When I lose my job because industry failed to adapt to a changing world, this is an economic issue.

These were the words of the 40 organizations that came together to address the leadership failure on climate change by forming the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition. We are not being fooled by the doublespeak, and we are stepping up to let our leaders know that the words are not a substitute for action. In at least 20 cities across the country, big and small, people are mobilizing for the International Day of Climate Action on December 8 to protest our government's shameful inaction and demand a real mandate for Bali.

This government will not be around to be held accountable for the worst effects of climate change. But 30 years down the road, when Canada has become a haven for climate refugees, they will look to me and my peers, the current youth of our rich industrialized and polluting nation, and say, “Why did you let this happen?”

So I'm asking you now, “With everything we know and all the tools you have, why are you letting this happen?”

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much, Ms. Hayes.

Mr. Bramley.

[Matthew Bramley, Director, Climate Change, Pembina Institute]

Thank you very much.

I hope everyone has received a copy of the submission we sent in a few days ago.

Before I get into substance, I would like to make clear that the Pembina Institute, which I'm representing today, is a strictly nonpartisan organization. We always try to comment fairly and objectively on policies and on policy proposals. We are often asked for input by politicians and by political parties, but we do not write documents that are published by political parties.

On the substance, the objective of the Bali conference--probably for the majority of the people involved and certainly the environmental community--is to adopt a negotiating mandate on a post-2012 global greenhouse gas reduction regime that will be negotiated with a deadline of 2009. It will include a series of elements that provide sufficient confidence that the world will be on a track to the scale of emission reductions that the scientific analysis has shown are needed to prevent dangerous climate change.

There are a number of key elements that the Climate Action Network International--which is the umbrella for environmental NGOs participating in the UN process--would like to see in the Bali mandate. I'm not going to list all those elements immediately. Most of them are in my submission.

I would note that they do include both stronger absolute emission reduction targets for industrialized countries such as Canada, but also deeper participation post-2012, including quantified commitments by rapidly developing countries such as China, India, and Brazil. These aren't absolute emission reduction targets of the kind that Canada should continue to have, but nonetheless, these are quantified commitments that represent a significant bending of the emissions curve relative to business as usual. I'll come back to that point in a moment.

Clearly, the Bali conference is extraordinarily important. We always say that these UN conferences are important. This one I think is a little bit unique. The scientific message that has been delivered this year in the IPCC's fourth assessment report, as John mentioned, is extraordinarily clear and concerning. I don't think this issue has ever had the public profile it enjoys at the moment. And frankly, time is running out for negotiations. The reason why 2009, as an end date, is so important for the Bali mandate is that we need to ensure that enough time is available for countries to ratify the post-2012 agreement once it's adopted.

It actually took I think eight years for the Kyoto Protocol to receive enough ratifications to enter into force. Three years between 2009 and 2012 is not very much time to allow that to happen, and we must avoid a vacuum in the international legal arrangements after 2012.

I'd also cite the UN Secretary-General, who recently, speaking of his expectations for Bali, said the following, and I quote:

I need a political answer. This is an emergency, and for emergency situations we need emergency action.

Moving on to Canada's position going into Bali, I'd like to highlight three ambiguities--certainly in the statements the government has made publicly--that I think are a concern and need to be resolved as quickly as possible.

First of all, the government has to date avoided taking a position on the question of a two degrees Celsius global warming limit relative to pre-industrial levels. This is a limit that enjoys wide support among both scientists and among governments. Today's United Nations development program report also endorsed a two degrees Celsius limit. I think the Government of Canada needs to state what it considers to be a maximum acceptable amount of global warming that would allow us to avoid dangerous human interference in the climate system, according to the objective of the UN framework convention.

A second ambiguity has to do with the global emission reductions that Canada wants to see. The Prime Minister has a number of times referred to a halving of global emissions by 2050, but the government has not to date stated a base year for those reductions. The reduction in emissions is, strictly speaking, meaningless if it is stated without saying a reduction below what.

A third ambiguity is a question that has been in the media the last couple of days: how global emission reductions should be shared out amongst categories of countries. As John emphasized, there are very wide disparities between different categories of countries.

If you compare a country like Canada with countries like China and India, if you look at per capita emissions, per capita GDP, historical responsibility, there are enormous disparities, roughly five times higher emissions per person, roughly five times higher GDP per person in Canada compared to a country like China. So, clearly, there's a need for Canada, going into these negotiations, to accept that it is not realistic or fair to insist that countries like China or India take on the same types of commitments in the immediate post-2012 period.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Mr. Bramley, we're up to eleven and a half minutes. I'm sure you'll have a chance during answers to questions to add more of that, if you don't mind, because we've gone well over the seven-minute point.

[Matthew Bramley]

Can I wrap up in 20 seconds?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Twenty seconds.

[Matthew Bramley]

Thank you.

Going in to Bali, I think there are serious questions over Canada's level of ambition. The government's attitude to the first phase of Kyoto, the ambiguity over two degrees, the government's targets, the government's 2020 targets in particular, we've compared in our submission to targets taken on by other governments in the industrialized world, compared to the scientific analysis. So I think Bali provides an unparalleled opportunity for Canada to announce a willingness to move to stronger targets and stronger policies to meet them, but if this doesn't happen, Canada will certainly negotiate from a position of weakness.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bramley and all the witnesses.

We'll now start with questions, with 10 minutes per party for the first round, starting with Mr. McGuinty.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for coming, witnesses.

That was a good point to finish on, Mr. Bramley. I'd like to pick up on a couple of the points you've made. A few other folks have made these comments, but I want to preface my remarks, if I could, with this. We're going to have the minister join us on Thursday and present to this committee and to Canadians what we intend to do in Bali, because we have no idea. All we know is that the minister is holding a private briefing session and a meeting for some people in Bali to explore his “Turning the Corner” plan. I want to put to you, if I could, just a couple of concerns we have about the plan, which is going to be presented in the international setting.

Here is my first concern. Just today, the World Wildlife Fund, in a piece commissioned through the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the U.K., released a major report that absolutely slams the government's plan, saying there's no way it's going to achieve 20% cuts by 2020. In fact, the Government of Canada will be subsidizing the expansion of the oil sands.

The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, which has examined the government's plans, has said the government has likely overestimated the greenhouse gas reductions or did not provide enough evidence to allow the round table to perform an analysis.

The government's own National Energy Board concluded that the government's plan is insufficient to meet the targets it sets. In fact, says the National Energy Board and a whole bunch of independent commissioners there, under two of the three scenarios laid out by the board, greenhouse gas emissions will continue to rise--increase--under the government's plan.

Deutsche Bank has said Canada is failing to participate in the international trading market and has said we will not achieve our targets. The C.D. Howe Institute doesn't believe the numbers. Pembina has produced a report that says there are at least eight gaps in the plan. This has not been denied by senior officials in the three line departments with responsibility for delivering the plan.

We could go on and on.

Today the UNDP issued a clarion call for the planet. It said that a functioning atmosphere is probably a question of human rights. It said it is a matter of social justice, and the poorest of the poor will bear an inequitable amount of the pain and suffering that is forthcoming as we adapt to climate change.

All this while the Prime Minister says at international meetings that we're going to aspire sometime in the future to absolute cuts. The thing that's particularly egregious about that for me is that he said that in Uganda, in Africa, where I spent many years. In Uganda, the annual income is $300 per person.

I want to put to you, if we're going to Bali and we're going to be sitting down with Joe Lieberman and his colleagues, with their bipartisan bill in the Senate that is very aggressive--certainly more aggressive than the plan put forward here by the government--and if we're going to be sitting down with the United Nations, the Chinese, the Indians, and rapidly emerging economies who are overtaking us in terms of emissions, does anybody on this panel really believe we're well prepared to talk to these individuals with credibility about bringing them into the fold?

Lastly, didn't the Kyoto Protocol contemplate perfectly what's happening now, that we would take these 24 months, this two-year period starting in Bali, go to the table with cleaner hands, and say to the rapidly industrializing world that we went first? We're not playing a game of chicken. We had to go first. We built our economies on the back of the atmosphere and now we're coming to you and saying, post-2012, that it's time to sign up. Are we really now in a good position to sit down, with credibility, with these 169 partners? It will soon be 171, I think, with Australia signing on next week. We'll be alone with the Republican administration in Washington, which is on the way out the door anyway. Are we well prepared here to go and sit down with credibility, given that our own plan has been completely eviscerated domestically?

Mr. Bramley, can you start?

[Matthew Bramley]

A section in my submission addresses the question of Canada's credibility and it contains some of the elements you mentioned. Certainly, a series of studies have attempted to assess the policies the government has announced to date to see whether they are strong enough to meet the 2020 target the government has laid out. I'm not aware of any that find the government has yet announced policies capable of meeting its own target.

I think Mark Jaccard's study for the C.D. Howe Institute is perhaps the most compelling. He found that under policies announced to date, Canada's emissions will remain indefinitely above current levels, according to his modelling.

I think another element affecting Canada's credibility is the question of saying what we want to get out of Bali. I'm not aware of a statement from the government that lists the elements it would like to see in a Bali mandate. I would contrast this, for example, with the European Union, which has published a list of the elements it thinks should be contained in the post-2012 agreement. There's a list of about eight elements in the council conclusions on climate change from the Environment Council on October 30.

Simply saying what Canada believes should be in the Bali mandate would be a step forward.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

May I ask, Mr. Drexhage, an additional question to consider in your answer?

It's understood, although the government continues to deny it, that the Kyoto Protocol has both what they call common and differentiated targets. It's understood that when we negotiated the Kyoto Protocol as a planet, because it is the only enforceable, the only comprehensive international agreement we have.... It's not this sideshow, this e-mail listserv called APAC. It's the only one we have.

Doesn't the agreement we have now, with common and differentiated targets, reflect the kinds of concerns you talked about. You talked about the fact that the rich countries probably should be going first.

[John Drexhage]

Yes, I agree that the rich countries should be going first and taking the lead. In fact, I really do wish that not only Canada but a number of other countries had been more aggressive in showing that leadership.

The problem we face right now.... I don't want to get into sort of different arguments about the extent to which Canada or any other country is credible. I would agree that if we had some kind of regulatory framework actually up and running for once, regardless of its stringency, that would be a nice first step of any kind. And that's my first concern. We continuously argue about what our target should be and how stringent we should be. That is all well and fine, and, yes, we need to become stringent, and a lot more quickly.

What has been so frustrating for me is the fact that there's been nothing yet put in place. I think that's the real danger. I mean, five or ten years ago I could see why we needed to start slowly, because we're talking about a huge intrusion into the economy. Let's face it, this is going to be a big shock. And we should, like the EU has done, have put in a nice mild system, some moderate allocations that would have helped to prime the pump.

The problem is that the fourth assessment report is reporting to us that time is running out. If, for example, as Matthew has indicated, we want the government to stay committed to a two degrees Celsius temperature change, we're talking about stabilizing global emissions in 15 years. There's no way you can reach two degrees Celsius without having China and India in that tent immediately, regardless. The atmosphere doesn't understand credibility; it doesn't understand equity.

I understand all these issues, and they're very important, and we have to take the lead on that, but at the same time, we have to keep in mind the very important environmental imperative.

The second thing I would point out is that while it recognized common but differentiated responsibilities, what I'm afraid may have happened under the Berlin mandate was an assumption by some of the developing countries, led by India, that provision 2 of article II, which states that developing countries will not take on any additional commitments, is set in stone. It can't be set in stone.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Do you think, Mr. Drexhage, that if a country like Canada comes to the table and puts a pistol to the heads of China and India and says you go first, or we're not going at all...? Does anyone believe that this is how international negotiations are conducted?

[John Drexhage]

I completely agree with you. The fact that we, as a developed community, including Canada, haven't taken strong actions up to now has really hurt the prospects for being able to go constructively forward in further engaging major developing countries. There's no question that there's been an impact on that.

The question that then arises is how we try to deal with this quandary. I want to bring to you the sense of what some experts are saying now. Just a couple of weeks ago, a whole series of experts were invited to Harvard, including Tad Homer-Dixon, and they basically have already said the gambit's up and we've lost; we've blown it. What we have to really seriously now think about is some serious geo-engineering interference in the atmosphere. These aren't just kooks out there. These are really serious experts from around the globe who have now said that we've run so late on this thing that it may already be too late.

I'm being very frank here. Hence the quandary I find myself in. Yes, absolutely, we need to do more. But we can't do it at the expense of saying to India and China that they don't have to do anything again for another 15 years or so, because then the gambit is really up.