Environment Committee on Dec. 11th, 2007

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Ms. Donnelly do you have the figures for each province for the period from 1990 to 2000?

[Aldyen Donnelly]

Yes.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Now then, getting back to the last column on the right of your table, all of the provinces have negative carbon reductions, except the Yukon, as it contributes very little to Canada's emissions. Does this mean that—

[Aldyen Donnelly]

And Saskatchewan.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

It is 7.9. Alright. I had not noticed this figure.

Does this mean that most provinces have made considerable efforts since 2000 to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions? We have not heard the government say anything like this since 2000 about greenhouse gas emission reductions.

[Aldyen Donnelly]

I can't speak for government. But speaking for industry—not that I'm mandated necessarily to represent any companies—when you come to me and say I have to reduce my emissions 6% below my 1990 baseline or 25% below my 1990 baseline or 10% below my 2000 baseline, the first thing I do to figure out what that means to me is say, “What does that number equal relative to my current emissions?” Anyone in the private sector trying to respond is always converting whatever standard you are proposing to a standard relative to the most recent year for which they have reasonable estimates for their own operations.

I don't know what government's motivation is to go to a recent-year baseline, but that's a practical way to represent the requirements you're imposing or asking us to deliver to. That's completely separate from how you'd pick those targets.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

I have one final question for Mr. Bramley; it will be very brief.

Mr. Bramley, are you there?

[Matthew Bramley]

Yes.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Section 3 of the bill deals with the stabilization of concentrations. The table you sent us shows that CO2 concentration is still on the increase.

Do you believe in stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere?

[Matthew Bramley]

I think that it is crucial for the whole world to aim at stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will meet the objective of the framework agreement, in order to prevent dangerous climatic changes.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Merci.

Mr. Christopherson, please.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you both very much for what you've gone through, if it's 4:30 in the morning there. We appreciate very much your taking the time and effort.

Ms. Donnelly, you mentioned the term “science denial”. Along that vein, so I understand our starting point, are you in agreement with the widely held view by most scientists that two degrees is the dangerous climate change trigger point?

[Aldyen Donnelly]

I'm personally of the view that I'm an economist by training and I'm not confident to express an opinion on chemistry and biology. I am saying that in 1996 I personally determined that this was the most important issue of the day and the one issue I wanted to work on. So my concern is more that we really haven't gotten off the mark, I would argue, either domestically or internationally.

I'm more concerned about how we get a change in how our economies work. I'm confident that if we implement the right measures, we will improve faster than anybody's forecasting. If we get our measures right, it will be a good thing that we improved, even if the science on climate change proves wrong in the future.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Okay. I hear you on that.

I must say it's a little surprising, given that, if I understood correctly, one of your baseline arguments was that we need to know the baseline of where we're starting from. It would seem to me that if you need that piece of information, then the other bookend to it is, what is the target you're trying to avoid so that you have that distance? But I hear what you're saying.

[Aldyen Donnelly]

I want to be clear. You've never heard me argue for or against any target, and you will never hear me express an opinion for or against any target. The question I keep putting before you is this. What do you need to be liberated so as to move progressively and get going towards any target?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Fair enough.

Another question to you, if you would, please.... Just for the sake of argument, if the big emitters that our government is suggesting have to be onside or we're not going to do anything, if that doesn't happen and we don't do anything and they don't do anything, how do we deal with this?

[Aldyen Donnelly]

I'm trying to answer that. I don't think “do nothing” is in the cards in any future. The question is, how will Canada's emissions reduce? Will they reduce because we transform a vibrant carbon-intensive economy to a vibrant not carbon-intensive economy, or does our economy transform, as Europe has, through offshoring manufacturing?

It's really important to note in the numbers that while Europe's continental greenhouse gas emissions have gone down, Europe's global greenhouse gas footprint has gone up, because Europeans are consuming more fuel, more electricity, more coal, more cars, more appliances, and they're making less.

We don't achieve or contribute to the global objective of global emissions reductions if all we do is what they did. We in Canada actually have to figure out how to do something no other country has done before. I think we can do it, but we have to be staring at real numbers.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you for that.

Mr. Bramley, with regard to what's going on in Bali right now, we're getting reports, of course, that we have been receiving the “fossil of the day”. I think one day there were three to give out and we got them all. A lot of Canadians are embarrassed that Canada is being held up in this light around the world, particularly since most of us have seen Canada as a nation in the family of nations, to be, if not the strongest and the biggest, then certainly the most respected. It's very embarrassing for a lot of us to see this happening.

Can you give us a sense of just how bad that is, how bad Canada is looking right now as a result of the inaction? Also, in my questioning of Jack, I asked if we were going to sign on to Kyoto. We've done so bloody little--nothing--and we're so far behind, it seems as though we haven't signed on. Of course, we have signed it, but we haven't done anything about it, which is another embarrassment.

Jack's recommendation was that we should honour the signature we have on the document. We should pay whatever penalties are necessary and get on with the job. Do you agree with that? Do you see some way we can redeem ourselves as a respectful nation in the eyes of the rest of the world vis-à-vis Kyoto?

[Matthew Bramley]

Well, I won't comment further on the different criticisms there have been of Canada. I think you've all seen that in the media.

One way the government could approach this is to say that the targets and policies we've advanced to now are a starting point. They're what we're willing to do unilaterally, whatever happens. The government, Minister Baird, could announce right here in Bali that he's willing to substantially strengthen Canada's targets, to bring them closer to the science, and to strengthen, particularly, the policies to support those targets, in the context of a Canadian contribution to the global cooperation, going forward over the next two years, over the course of the negotiations in Bali.

Again, Minister Baird has made some statements coming into Bali and while he's been here that have sounded very hardline. There have been statements about absolute binding reductions by countries with per capita emissions and wealth five to ten times lower than that of Canada.

Also, he issued a news release a couple of days ago saying he accepted the principle of common but differentiated targets. Again, I think there's an opening there for Minister Baird to clarify that in fact he does not envisage China or India, for example, taking on the same type of target as Canada will in the immediate post-2012 period. Instead, we do need to see quantified actions, new commitments that significantly reduce the emissions of those countries, relative to business as usual, in the immediate period following 2012. Perhaps one day those countries will be in a position where it's fair to take on a hard cap.

I think the minister has an opportunity to go some considerable way to repairing the damage that's been done to Canada's reputation here.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Again, regarding the term “science denial” and the two degrees Celsius, obviously you're a believer. Are there others, prominent players there, who do not agree, or is it all but unanimous that the two degrees Celsius is a number we should accept as motherhood, if you will, for lack of a better term?

[Matthew Bramley]

It's not fair to say it's unanimous. It's a target, actually, that the European Union adopted as long ago as 1996, over 10 years ago, so this has been around for a long time. What really struck me in the last little while is that leading climate scientists who used to be very cautious about stating an opinion on what would be dangerous climate change--because that does involve not just scientific evidence but also a value judgment--are now coming forward in substantial numbers. I cited that Bali Climate Declaration by Scientists as a striking example of this.

A lot of the scientists are now getting so impatient that they're saying, “Look, you governments, two degrees Celsius would just be unacceptable, from our understanding of all the projections that are made of impacts.” Now many of them, as I said in my presentation, are saying this two degrees Celsius has to be the prime goal of the new global deal we hope will be under negotiation going out of Bali.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

I have one last question. I'm down to my last couple of moments. Some time has passed since you wrote the report on which, in large part, the bill is premised. Has anything changed substantively that we should be taking into account?

[Matthew Bramley]

There has been a lot of new science on climate change. By and large, it has been very much pushing in the direction of raising our level of alarm, raising the sense of urgency that we should have, and it is a fact that the IPCC fourth assessment report, third volume, which came out this year, did confirm those numbers that we ended up concluding, the numbers for the Canadian reductions that we think we need to see by 2020 and 2050, the numbers we put in our report. The IPCC has now confirmed that those are the right targets. In fact, they're at the bottom end of the range of the right targets for industrialized countries, if we want to have a chance of avoiding two degrees.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you both.

Mr. Vellacott.