Evidence of meeting #118 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was question.
A video is available from Parliament.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Mr. Lucas, a number of agencies including the UN and I believe the Auditor General have noted that Canada right now is not on track to meet its Paris Agreement targets. It's short somewhere around I believe 90 megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. Can you confirm today exactly how big that shortfall is?
12:15 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
Canada reports transparently each year, every second year to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and in the alternate years in our public reporting in Canada on our emission forecast and the results of the the inventory on actual observations. In the most recent report to the UN in December 2017, it reported the single biggest drop in Canadian history of emissions, 232 megatonnes, which brought the total to about 583 megatonnes. That did not include a number of areas that weren't modelled, which has been our approach based on expert advice. That included the land use—
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
I don't want to interrupt you but you didn't answer my question, which is how far short are we on our Paris Agreement goals?
12:15 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
The response I was giving is that the government has articulated a plan to achieve the target. That includes both measures modelled in the report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change but also other measures that have not been modelled including public transit, areas of innovation technology development, and in particular in the land use and land use change sector in terms of stored carbon in the forest and agricultural lands.
12:15 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
What I'm conveying is that in the model portion, it brings us to 583 megatonnes and we believe through these areas that have not been modelled—
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
You say, areas that have not been modelled. Is that your way of saying you have a shortfall but you don't want to actually admit there's a shortfall?
12:15 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
No, I believe what it represents in areas, for example, in land use and land use change, the international rules for that are still being developed. Canada has a very robust system of tracking stored carbon in forests and in agricultural lands, which we believe, until those international rules are secured, we will not report in our—
12:15 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
As I said, there's a difference between—
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Stephen, this is not looking good on you.
You have an answer but you won't give it to this committee. I really find that troubling. You have an answer—
12:15 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
Madam Chair, what I would like to do is just....
12:15 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
I was trying to explain my answer. The target in 2030 is 517 megatonnes. We believe that we're on a path to achieve that target through the measures in the pan-Canadian framework, which include those modelled and reported in the UNFCCC and in that same report, and in other public documents. There are areas that we have not modelled because we're taking a conservative expert-driven set of assumptions to that modelling, including public transit—
June 5th, 2018 / 12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Both the United Nations and the Auditor General have noted that in fact the Pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change and all the programs that are within it, will not meet the Paris Agreement targets. Correct?
12:15 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
The commissioner on environment and sustainable development's report was focused on previous plans that looked at targets in 2020. She did not audit the 2030 target. We look forward to that assessment.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Let me ask you a different question. What role will international carbon credits play in achieving Canada's greenhouse gas emissions?
12:20 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
The pan-Canadian framework did indicate that internationally traded mitigation opportunities, which is the way they're described in the Paris Agreement, can represent a contribution to that. At present that article in the Paris Agreement, article 6, in terms of the rules governing it, continues to be negotiated.
The agreement, through the pan-Canadian framework that the provinces and territories agreed to, recognizes that as a financial area of contribution, as well as measures crossing economic sectors in this country.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Just to be clear, when you're talking about carbon credits and trying to negotiate something that's going to allow Canada to purchase carbon credits, this is about Canada making up any shortfall in reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by sending money to other countries or other jurisdictions to purchase credits so that Canada can meet its targets, and that money then goes to other jurisdictions to be spent on the priorities of those jurisdictions. Is that correct?
12:20 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
What I described was that the pan-Canadian framework plan looks at a variety of measures touching all sectors of the economy across all regions. The modelling of that shows a reduction in 2030 of 232 megatonnes relative to the current baseline. In addition, there are a number of areas that have not been modelled, including the investments in public transit, which are anticipated to reduce emissions, changes in technology through innovation, as well as stored carbon in forests and through agricultural soil. The pan-Canadian framework really outlines a plan to achieve the target domestically.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
12:20 p.m.
NDP
Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you for being with us.
Last year or two years ago, I had the unique opportunity of visiting Sable Island National Park Reserve, off the coast of Nova Scotia. It is a magical and unique place in the world. In fact, it is the only place in Canada where there are still wild horses. We recently learned that the Minister of the Environment had authorized several offshore drilling operations in the vicinity of this national park.
Could you tell us if you have analyzed the impact that these drilling operations might have on the national park's ecosystem?
