Environment Committee on Dec. 11th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

I'm going to call the committee meeting to order.

Welcome, Mr. Layton. It's your bill that we're looking at.

Just to remind all the members, the first hour, from 3:30 until 4:30, we'll be hearing from Mr. Layton about Bill C-377. In the second hour we will have two people via teleconference.

Mr. Layton, we'd ask you if you could be approximately 10 minutes. That way we can get a round in for everybody for their questions for you. I'd like to welcome you on behalf of the committee. The time is yours.

[Jack Layton, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Chairman, honourable colleagues, thank you for inviting me. I am very glad to be here. I am very interested in your work. I have already attended some of your hearings.

I'm here to present Bill C-377, the Climate Change Accountability Act, which I introduced into the House, as you know, in October 2006. This bill proposes science-based medium and long-term targets for Canada for avoiding dangerous levels of climate change.

It is in the nature of private members' business that these things take a long time to move their way through the process. So here we are at this point able to discuss the bill. If anything, in this case, I would say the passage of time and the events of the past year have really made it an even more ideal time to be discussing this bill. Since October last year we've had more science reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We've had two plans presented by the government. Legislation has been written by a special committee. A G-8 summit has been held on the issue, and of course we had the UN conference in Nairobi as well. As we're discussing this matter here, the world is gathered in Bali, kicking off negotiations for the second phase, the post-2012 phase, of the Kyoto Protocol, which is precisely what this bill is designed to address.

Of course, today, December 11, is the 10th anniversary of the Kyoto Protocol itself. It's a chance really for us to look forward at what needs to be done. There's been a lot of finger-pointing. We all know how that goes in politics. A lot of partisan games and so on have been played. It would be good if we could turn the page on that and look to the future. Canada's record is clear. The world knows about our record. Based on the last national inventory report numbers, Canada's greenhouse gas emissions are 33% above where they were set by the target for Canada through Kyoto.

I think everybody on this committee is in agreement that we have to deal with climate change. It's a fundamental issue. How fundamental? Well, the UN Secretary General has called climate change the biggest challenge to humanity in the 21st century. I think he's right. The global environmental outlook by the United Nations environmental program has stated:

Biophysical and social systems can reach tipping points, beyond which there are abrupt, accelerating, or potentially irreversible changes.

We must do our share to prevent the planet from reaching the point of no return. This should be our starting point, and it is the starting point for Bill C-377.

There is broad agreement among scientific experts that an increase of two degrees in the surface temperature of the earth, as compared to the pre-industrial era temperature, would be a dangerous climate change that would impact the entire planet. Even the government's Minister of Foreign Affairs accepts this two-degree threshold.

To obtain results efficiently, we must first have a clear orientation. Everything must be planned in advance. We must set benchmarks to ensure that we are on the right path and, to be absolutely sure, we need expert and objective monitoring of our progress. This is what we are doing with this bill.

We've marked out the destination, which is to avoid a two-degree Celsius increase. We've set out well in advance what the objective should be: an 80% reduction by 2050. We've identified some benchmarks along the way: a 25% reduction by 2020 and interim targets at five-year intervals, which are spelled out. And we're providing for accountability through reporting and monitoring requirements in the bill.

It's a pretty straightforward bill. Its purpose, as stated in clause 3, is

to ensure that Canada contributes fully to the stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.

In terms of Canada's contribution to stalling a two-degree temperature increase, Canada's greenhouse gas emissions will have to be reduced by 80% by 2050. That target is set out in clause 5.

This is based on The Case For Deep Reductions, the report by the Pembina Institute and the David Suzuki Foundation, which I believe you're familiar with. Also, I know that Matthew Bramley will be your next witness, coming in over the phone, and he will be describing his research and this report.

Clause 5 also sets a medium target of a 25% reduction by 2020, also based on that report.

Clause 6 provides that these targets and all the other five-year interim targets will be published in a comprehensive greenhouse gas emissions target plan. The first plan would have to be tabled within six months of this act receiving royal assent.

Regarding accountability, this bill proposes, under section 10, that the minister should regularly make statements to explain the measures taken by the government in order to meet the targets and the precise reductions that they entail.

Section 13 provides for a review of the statements and for hearing the objective opinion of experts. The current draft assigns this role to the Commissioner of the Environment. However, according to another bill, this role would be inappropriate. Therefore, we are ready to accept that the bill be amended. For instance, it could give this role to the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.

The targets set out in Bill C-377 match the targets set by the world's most progressive jurisdictions. The European Union is committed to a 60% to 80% reduction compared to 1990 levels by 2050. France is targeting a 75% to 80% reduction, and the United Kingdom is committed to a reduction of a least 60% below the 1990 levels. Norway is committed to becoming carbon-neutral by 2050.

In North America, these kinds of targets are also becoming quite a bit more common. California, as you know, has a 2050 reduction target of 80%. The New England states have signed on to a target reduction of 75% to 85%. The Government of Ontario has set a reduction target of 80%. U.S. Democrats are getting on board. Candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards have all pledged a commitment to a cut of 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 in their programs.

Backing the kinds of targets that Bill C-377 would bring into Canada would put Canada in good company with the leaders, not the laggards. Being with the leaders means that we'll be better positioned to transform our economy into the new energy economy of the future. This is where the real opportunities are.

These are the targets required by science. They are the targets set by responsible nations that understand their role in the world and their responsibility to future generations.

I might add that they are a major improvement over the targets we've seen in the government's “Turning the Corner” plan. The government says it will cut greenhouse gases by 20% by 2020, but that's 20% below 2006 levels, meaning it's approximately 2% above 1990 levels. Its 2050 target works out to between 49% and 62% below the 1990 levels.

We don't know where these targets came from. They seem to have an element of arbitrariness to them. They don't seem to be linked to any particular calculus of the temperature impact on the planet. In fact, the government, unlike the EU, has refused so far to even take a position on the two-degree Celsius limit on global warming.

Thanks to access to information, we now know that Foreign Affairs is aware of the need to heed this limit, but the government has so far chosen to ignore that awareness or that advice.

In conclusion, I want to thank you once again for inviting me to table this bill. I am glad to know that you will be hearing witnesses. We are open to improving the legislation, to making it better. Above all, it is important that we strive to improve matters. The stakes are high, and we are pressed for time. We can already see the impact of climate change.

In the summer of 2006, just before introducing this bill, I was in the forests of British Columbia. I was shocked to see the devastation. I flew with some of the local people, including the owner of the mill, and I saw all the red and brown leaves of the forest. Then I flew at 30,000 feet, between the two great mountain ranges of the Rockies, and it was red as far as I could see. That was an absolutely shocking thing, to realize the devastation, the catastrophic change that has already happened.

Then this past summer I was at the Arctic Circle, up in Pangnirtung, in an Inuit community. I asked the elder what changes he was noticing. As we looked down the valley, he said, “Well, the change is in the colour. We've never seen green here before.” As far as we could see, there was a green kind of moss going up the 500-foot embankments, with the glaciers just visible beyond that. I said, “You mean the elders told you there was never any green here before?” He said, “No, I mean within the last 10 years. The glaciers used to come right down, and it was all rock and ice. But now there's a huge transformation. Now we can't get access to our protein sources, the migrating animals, because their patterns have changed.”

We're seeing the results. They're very dramatic. They're impacting on our planet. But we've only begun to see the changes.

On the other hand, we have so many opportunities to exploit if we could set a new direction for ourselves. I'm very, very confident that Canada could be in the forefront of some of the changes that are needed to get us to that new energy economy. I'm hoping this bill will help.

Thank you all very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you, Mr. Layton.

In case I forget, I will remind members that we would like your list of witnesses by Friday so we can go to work on that. I will contact the steering committee, hopefully next Wednesday, regarding that list. So be sure you have those in by Friday, please.

We'll go first to Mr. Godfrey, please.

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

Welcome, Mr. Layton. It's good to see you here.

Depending on how this goes, I may be sharing my time with one of my colleagues, Mr. Regan.

I would like to ask a couple of questions. To some extent, there is a relationship between a private member's bill we passed last year, Bill C-288, which referred to the monitoring of the Kyoto Protocol, and the kinds of monitoring devices that are contemplated here.

What's curious about your bill is a couple of things. First of all, it kicks into action in 2015. As we all know from watching the proceedings in Bali, the first Kyoto commitment period ends in 2012. What isn't particularly evident from the bill is how it builds on Kyoto. Why wouldn't you envisage, as people in Bali are now doing, that it would pick up in 2012 rather than 2015.

[Jack Layton, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

First of all, I think it is designed to fit directly with the Kyoto Protocol and Kyoto targets. Of course, when the bill was written we couldn't be sure what was going to come out of the international negotiations and how the transition, internationally, would be agreed to. We proposed that we would work backwards from the science-based targets for 2050 and a fixed medium-term target for 2020, and then the notion of five-year plans that would get started in 2015.

In light of the developments since this bill was put together, if the committee is able to determine some language that would create a smoother intersection between the end of the first period and the beginning of the next, we'd certainly be very open to looking at that.

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

I guess what was always known was that the first Kyoto commitment period would end in 2012. Therefore, plans that would be part of the second period would have to kick in right away; we couldn't wait until 2015. When the bill was presented last year, it was known that the first Kyoto period would be over in 2012. I'm still a little puzzled by this three-year gap. Why wouldn't one want the government to produce a plan in 2012 that seamlessly moves on to whatever the next agreement will be called?

[Jack Layton, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Well, we would be open to that proposition. We supported Bill C-288, as you know, worked on it, and also Bill C-30. I think this suite, if you will, of pieces of legislation should be able to fit together in a way that accomplishes the goal. I think it's quite likely that coming out of Bali and those negotiations an end point of 2020 would not be a surprise, so we put a fix on that one with our 25% reduction there.

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

Again, I'm a little puzzled by the way in which there seems to be a bit of a gap between your bill and the Kyoto period. Under the “Interpretation” section you define, under clause 2, as follows:

“Canadian greenhouse gas emissions” means the total of annual emissions, excluding emissions from land use, land-use change and forestry, quantified in the national inventory.

Now that phrase, which is sometimes called LULUCF, perhaps it's pronounced differently en français...as I understand it, under the Kyoto Protocol, those emissions were considered in an optional fashion. But it was agreed, if we know nothing else about the post-Kyoto period, the post-2012 period, that in fact for the period you're talking about, that is to say, 2015 and beyond, it will be obligatory to consider those emissions. So why would you exclude from the definition of “greenhouse gases” the total annual sum of those items coming from land use, land-use change, and forestry, since, as we knew last year, at the time the bill was drafted, that you couldn't do that, you actually had to include them?

[Jack Layton, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Well, because we have not accepted the approach that's been taken to the definition of these sinks. We believe the reason Canada pushed, as it did, back in the day when this was discussed for that exemption, was primarily to allow Canada a somewhat easier time to address the ultimate objectives.

What we laid out here, which we would acknowledge is a very significant set of reductions over the next period of time, to 2050, was something concrete and specific that we felt there could be reasonable scientific certainty about.

I think you would probably agree with me that the calculation of the land-use change emissions and sinks is still very much an emerging science. It's difficult to have confidence in the kind of giga-tonne numbers that are flowing from those kinds of definitions at this point in the science.

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

The problem we have is that it's not us, it's the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which has said that for the post-2012 period you have to include those things. If one is going to be supportive of the international UN process, that decision has been made, that train has left the station. It's not up to us if we wish to honour the international agreement that is referenced in the bill to exclude that. Is it?

[Jack Layton, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Well, the framework provides that it should be considered, but I don't think the fashion in which it's going to be considered has been negotiated or defined. I stand to be corrected, and I'm open to further advice from experts on that, but I don't believe that has been accomplished yet at the UNFCC.

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

My understanding is it was agreed previously that it will be obligatory to consider those things. It's not an option, and the international community has agreed to that.

I don't know if my colleagues have anything they wish to add to the line of questioning.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

I'll ask a quick question, through you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Layton, what happens, probably not this year, in Bali, but in 2009, for example, if there are targets agreed upon internationally that are different from this, perhaps even more stringent, for example? What would your view be on the provisions you've proposed?

[Jack Layton, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Parliament could always come back and revisit these numbers. I'm sure Parliament will. I can't imagine we would be in exactly the same spot in 2050, when we get there. I'm unlikely to be present at the discussion, but probably my kids will, or my grandchildren.

The approach we took was to say what does the best science say now about what the objective for 2050 should be. We turned to the scientific calculations that have been done, very well summarized and documented by the Pembina Institute and David Suzuki. This is based on pretty broad-sweeping analysis. We thought that's the best advice available from some of the best minds in the world. Let's use that as the objective at this point. I would imagine that the experts who would be commenting on the five-year plans and on our progress, and Canadians, in general, would be encouraging future parliamentarians to constantly revise the targets as more information becomes available.

I think it's fair to say, from a scientific standpoint, the 80% number is now considered a minimum. Your point that it might well be that we would have to go further could be well taken. George Monbiot's work certainly suggests a higher number, for example.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. McGuinty.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Layton, for being here. It's good to see you again, Jack.

When I first spoke to this bill in the House, I said I thought the member putting it forward was beyond reproach in terms of sincerity about the issue, so thank you for your efforts here.

I want to put a practical question to you. Are you not somewhat discouraged, given the conduct of the government in the wake of the adoption of Bill C-288 as binding law in Canada and the fact that the government has now missed two deadlines and is being pursued in the Federal Court by two NGOs to try to compel the government to do what the government is obliged to do? Aren't you a little discouraged that even if this bill were to see the light of day, the government would simply ignore it?

[Jack Layton, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

That's always a possibility.

But because it's the kind of bill that I hope will have the support of the majority of members of Parliament, representing, I believe, a very strong majority of Canadians and Quebeckers, it would be a bill the government would be forced to take more seriously than they seem to have taken the previous bill.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Layton, one of the questions--I'm not sure if it was put to you by Mr. Godfrey. I think he was on the edges of it. He may put it to you directly.

One of the things that troubles me about the bill is that it calls on Canada to unilaterally vary the targets for emissions in Canada, without any mention of the penalties that would accrue to Canada and to Canadians under the Kyoto Protocol. Was that an oversight in the drafting, to your knowledge? In my reading of the bill, it doesn't really treat that issue at all.

[Jack Layton, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

No, that's true. We didn't attempt to treat the issue of the penalties, in part because we won't know exactly what they are, in part because we won't know what any negotiations might produce with regard to how penalties are to be treated in the next phase by whichever appendix of countries. So we felt it would be premature for us to try to guess how that could be dealt with or approached.

As you may know, I have raised the issue of the penalties in the House. There's no question that under Kyoto there are consequences for not having accomplished the targets. So it may be that the work of this committee can help guide us as far as how they should be handled. I would welcome that.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you, Mr. McGuinty.

Mr. Lussier.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome, Mr. Layton.

In section 6 of your bill, the first paragraph states that you want the government to prepare "an interim Canadian greenhouse gas emissions target plan". You give a yearly schedule, but I would like to have some more meat, or substance, regarding the content of the plan.

[Jack Layton, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thank for your question.

I am very optimistic about the possibility of meeting these targets. I believe that there are all kinds of initiatives being proposed throughout Canada and Quebec that show that real progress can be made. Therefore, if we have a plan, for instance for renewable energy, public transit and carbon, future governments will be able to launch many initiatives for meeting the objectives.

I believe that, as policies evolve and as technologies are implemented, in 20 or 30 years, we will have all kinds of means available to us that we cannot presently anticipate. Nevertheless, for the coming years, we have tools that are available right now for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, provided the political will to do so exists.

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

Alright.

You know, Mr. Layton, that the Bloc Québécois and the NDP share the same position regarding the 1990 base year. We also agree about absolute targets and the carbon exchange for exchanging carbon credits. However, there may be a difference in opinion regarding the approach, because the Bloc Québécois favours a territorial approach.

You know that the European countries have signed an agreement to share the famous so-called emissions "pie", and that some countries can increase their emissions. For instance, I see that Iceland can increase its emissions by 10%, whereas other countries are committed to reducing theirs. Nevertheless, there is a target for Europe as a whole.

Let me give you three figures. The first figure says that 596 megatons of greenhouse gases were produced in 1990. In 2005, 747 megatons were produced. According to your figures, to reduce its emissions by 25% below the 1990 level by 2020, Canada will have to get its production down to 447 megatons. Therefore, to go from 747 megatons to 447 megatons, we will have to eliminate 300 megatons somewhere.

How is this reduction to be shared on a territorial basis?

[Jack Layton, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

By and large, the analyses were made by industry sector. These figures are available. We know, for instance, that the tar sands development is contributing significantly to the increase in emissions. Therefore, clearly, we must do something about this. Of course, the tar sands are in a specific location.

Therefore, if the committee wants to find other ways of sharing emissions while respecting the guidelines laid down by the bill, we are very interested in discussing the matter. Nonetheless, we are aiming to reduce emissions across Canada.