Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for having us.
Today I am speaking from the unceded lands of the Kanien'keháka people.
I represent Climate Action Network Canada, which is a network of more than 130 organizations, including labour, development, faith-based and indigenous groups, as well as the key national and provincial environmental organizations working on climate change across the country.
Canada has been setting climate targets for decades and has failed to deliver on every single greenhouse gas emission reduction commitment it has ever made. Canada is the only G7 nation whose emissions remain well above 1990 levels and whose emissions have continued to rise since the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015. If we missed target after target, it wasn't because those targets were too ambitious or unattainable—quite the contrary. It is because of the critical lack of climate governance in this country.
Bill C-12 is a chance for us to rectify the situation, but it has to be amended. Working with our members and colleagues from Ecojustice, West Coast Environmental Law and Équiterre, we have submitted a briefing note to the committee that outlines, under five headings, recommendations to reinforce Bill C-12 and to make it a more robust piece of climate accountability legislation. Those headings are: ambitious short-term action, medium- and long-term certainty, credible and effective plans, accountability and science and expert opinion.
On Monday, you heard my colleagues discuss a number of those headings, all of which are equally important. Today I will focus my remarks on ambitious short-term action and accountability.
To limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the critical threshold beyond which we expose ourselves to the most disastrous and irreversible impacts of climate change, we must completely decarbonize the economy by 2050. This long-term objective is important, but so is the path we take to achieve it. To reach this temperature-related objective, we must flatten the curve of greenhouse gas, or GHG, emissions as soon as possible, and that means we must start work now. To borrow an analogy that committee members will remember, studying in advance rather than cramming the night before the exam is the right strategy for better results.
Consequently, the lack of an interim target for 2025 is troubling. Bill C-12 should at least establish a control point before 2030, provide that plans include modeling that reflects emissions for every year, including 2025, and require regular reports on progress achieved starting in 2023.
While carbon budgets were not the approach chosen by the drafters of this bill, international examples have clearly shown the benefits of a budgeting approach to facilitate choices that have an impact on emissions. CAN-Rac still believes Canada would benefit from such an approach, but in the absence of carbon budgets, Bill C-12 must at the very least require plans to show annual emissions projections if it is to come close to having the efficacy of the international examples.
Now let's talk about accountability, an essential component of responsibility. Legislation elsewhere in the world clearly defines who is responsible for meeting targets and how those targets are to be met. As in any financial undertaking, someone must be ultimately responsible for ensuring that all measures adopted to meet commitments are adequate.
This element is still missing from Bill C-12, and the minister should be required to demonstrate that, taken together, the measures outlined in the plans will make it possible to achieve targets. The choice of words is also important in describing legal obligations. The language chosen should avoid references to obligations "to try" and instead establish obligations "to achieve" results.
To conclude, a strengthened Bill C-12 has the potential to end our cycle of broken climate promises and forge a path for Canada towards a future that is healthier, more resilient and more just, and that prioritizes abundance and well-being for all. We ask all parties to work together to strengthen and adopt Bill C-12 quickly. If you, committee members, and your colleagues in the House rise to the challenge, history will remember you as the parliamentarians who ushered in a new era of climate accountability in this country.
Thank you very much.
I will be pleased to answer your questions.