Evidence of meeting #131 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 ipcc.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Pan-Canadian Framework Implementation Office, Department of the Environment
Yes, but I don't have the figures in front of me. I'm sorry.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
Turning to my next line of questioning, as recently as 2011, I think, a Statistics Canada report said that 6% of Canadian households use wood biomass products for home heating, and in some provinces, such as P.E.I., it's as high as 33% of total home heating.
I'm wondering if Environment Canada is keeping track of the carbon emissions from home heating. I know it's almost impossible to track somebody throwing a log in the fire, but do you have any estimates of the amount of CO2 emissions that are being created by home heating?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Pan-Canadian Framework Implementation Office, Department of the Environment
I don't have that information in front of me. Wood is, almost by definition, a carbon-neutral fuel, so while there is carbon emission from the forest, it absorbs those carbon atoms from the atmosphere. We do follow the emissions from home wood combustion more from an air pollutant perspective, because there are potential significant localized air pollutants that come from wood combustion. There had been talk at one point of some regulatory measures about more high-efficiency wood stoves, but I've lost track of the status of those air pollutant policies over the years.
So we'd have to come back to you on that, but it certainly has not been a target of our policies at this point.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
Thank you.
I have finished, unless I can pass it on to—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John Aldag
Well, we had said an hour from when we started, and we started at 4:04 p.m., but if people want to end at 5 p.m., I'll do whatever is the will of the committee. We're very close to the hour that we said we would take.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John Aldag
There are still three minutes on your side's clock, which will probably take us to the end of the time we have.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB
Could you explain the process? I do want to get back to the forest fire process, because I think there is a huge potential there, but I may be missing something. I'm not a scientist.
So maybe, Greg, you'd be the guy to speak to this a little bit. You talk about it being completely neutral, but when you have these raging forest fires like we've had in the last few years in B.C., it seems there are a lot of emissions coming from those.
Could you describe the counter effect that would be neutral in that?
Senior Scientist, Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, Science and Technology Branch, Department of the Environment
When I was talking about neutral, I meant that in undisturbed forest over a very long time, as trees grow, they take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, and as they die or burn or otherwise are eliminated, they put that carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere.
So forest fires have always happened. They have always been part of the natural cycle of forests, but to the extent that changing climate is causing fires to be either larger or more frequent or cover a larger percentage of the forest, then that can cause a net addition of carbon to the atmosphere over and above this neutral balance of trees growing and dying and burning.
It's the difference between the kind of equilibrium state and a state that is changing as the climate is changing.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB
It seems to me, and correct me if I'm wrong, that a burning forest is much more damaging in terms of emissions than a forest that's naturally dying. Would that be accurate?
Senior Scientist, Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, Science and Technology Branch, Department of the Environment
I'm not quite sure how one would measure damaging. On the long time scale, it doesn't really matter whether a tree dies and decomposes, or whether it dies a fiery death.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB
As we're trying to rapidly make an impact on global emissions, it seems that if we could develop an expertise to stop the forests from burning and throwing 200 megatonnes of emissions into the air in a year, that would buy us some time to tackle all of the other things that we're trying to tackle from a climate change perspective.
Would that not be accurate?
Senior Scientist, Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, Science and Technology Branch, Department of the Environment
In general terms, anything one does to reduce the net amount of carbon dioxide that's going into the atmosphere reduces the concentration, and therefore reduces the climate change that's associated with it. So, yes, in a general way anything you do to reduce emissions is a benefit, in that sense.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB
I think this is where I'm going: I'd love to see us tackle this question as a country. As we look at the time frame from here to 2030, it seems that there would be an enormous opportunity, and a win-win.... Obviously there's a danger associated with forest fires, there's pollution that's not emissions-related associated with forest fires, and there's certainly a quality of life.
In my province, where something like solar might be a huge opportunity, when you block out the sun to the level that we're blocking it out over the last few years because of forest fires, you're certainly having an impact there.
I am looking forward to the next study and to taking a look at some of these questions a little more.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John Aldag
Our committee had agreed today that we would go one hour with you as a panel. Thank you so much for coming in.
For the committee members, for the first Tuesday back after our constituency week we're going to be moving into drafting instructions. I have asked the analysts on this current study that we've done to come up with some thoughts, a table of contents, perhaps, on what that study could look like. We'll have that available to guide the discussion.
We've made a request to the minister to see if she'd be available for the supplementary estimates on that day. We hope to know tomorrow or, if not, what her availability is in the next three or four weeks.
On the Thursday that we're back, we'll be moving into the agriculture, forestry, waste portion of our study.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB
To that point, I know the minister's schedule is very busy, so I would suggest that as a committee we make ourselves available at basically any time the minister happens to be available.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John Aldag
We put out the inquiry.
With that, everybody have a great constituency week.
The meeting is adjourned.