Environment Committee on May 20th, 2021

[Prof. David V. Wright]

It's the quintessential “easier said than done situation”, but we haven't really tried in a meaningful way, at least not in the last decade. Commencing that conversation across federal-territorial-provincial governments is the important first step in putting those numbers forward. You could even have a first go in a Kyoto-like pledge system, in which everyone comes to the table and says, “Look, this is what's possible.”

What's different now from a decade or so ago, including under the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, is that you do have a clear federal policy and federal intentions that are aligned with this act but you also have an emerging recognition right across the country, including in the west, that we are, like it or not, on a path to decarbonization. All one has to do is look at the IEA report from just a couple of days ago.

The fundamental difference between Canada and somewhere like the EU is in the economic makeup of the country. Canada's oil and gas sector is such a significant part of the economy that it has made that conversation a non-starter. That is changing, and everyone recognizes that right across the country, so the table really is set to have that conversation toward that kind of effort-sharing agreement in a way that it hasn't been before.

That may sound a little bit rosy, but really there are not many other options. It's time to tackle the elephant that has plagued Canada's implementation of climate commitments for decades.

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I appreciate that very much, and it may be rosy, but I appreciate the degree to which you're more optimistic now than you would have been 10 years ago. I appreciate that you underline the direction in which we're moving on this, and where folks across the country are moving on this.

I want to change gears a little bit and talk about targets.

One of the things I wonder about is the need to establish targets in this legislation. As I think about the setting of targets, no matter which government may be setting them, it's one thing to set a target and it's another thing to deliver on it. There is a tremendous amount that has to happen, and you've just talked about the complexity and the difficulty of working with the provinces to achieve that.

Even if we separate that out for a moment and from what is within the federal government's mandate, there is a tremendous amount that has to be done and planned and organized and coordinated. With regard to this bill, I am just wondering about your thoughts on the timelines for setting targets. What are your thoughts about the time horizon, the every-five-year time frame? Is that appropriate? What do you think?

[Prof. David V. Wright]

I don't disagree with a lot of the submissions you've heard on that, which have said that five years is okay, but it ought to be 10 years. Also, it is an iterative process and, of course, those targets can be amended.

What, to me, has been lost a little bit lost in some of the evidence before the committee is that there is an embedded target in the statute, which is net zero by 2050. It's a long way away. It's ambiguous. It could introduce unlimited use of offsets, which may be problematic, but it's at least there and there are requirements, essentially to be on track towards that throughout, which is a good thing. There is no open-endedness. It's all engineered toward that ultimate end point, which is a good thing.

The provisions could be more prescriptive and detailed with respect to making sure we do get there.

Thank you.

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I want to thank all of the panellists.

We're going to take about a seven-minute break and reconvene at 4 p.m. In the meantime, the clerk will connect members of the next panel. Mr. Heaps will stay on the line.

Again, thank you for your contributions and for a stimulating discussion.

I'll mute my mike and shut off my video, and we will gather again in about six minutes. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Welcome to the second half of our meeting today.

We have with us, as individuals, Dr. Madhur Anand, professor at the School of Environmental Sciences and director of the Guelph Institute for Environmental Research at the University of Guelph; and Dr. Sarah Burch, associate professor in the department of Geography and Environmental Management at the University of Waterloo, and executive director of the Interdisciplinary Centre on Climate Change. From the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, we have Dr. Aaron Henry, senior director of natural resources and sustainable growth.

From the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec, we're joined by Denis Bolduc, general secretary; and Patrick Rondeau, union advisor, Environment and Just Transition. From the Trottier Energy Institute, we're joined by Normand Mousseau, scientific director and professor, Department of Physics, Université de Montréal. Obviously, Mr. Heaps is here with us. I'll start with Mr. Heaps, because he has been waiting for some time to give his opening remarks.

Mr. Heaps, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Toby Heaps]

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm going to make two general brief points.

The first point relates to reporting. As Peter Drucker, the management theorist, once said, “What gets measured, gets managed.” Hopefully this act includes a provision for the Minister of Finance to issue an annual report regarding the federal public administration's preparedness and management of the risks and opportunities of climate change.

It would be a major improvement if this part of the bill were clarified so that it explicitly includes the Bank of Canada; the major pension funds in the federal remit, including the PSP and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board; and the Canada Post pension plan, among other Crown corporation pension plans. I would encourage more guidance on what that report should include. In my view, it should include an assessment of those institutions against the same target that we are holding Canada to, which is the net-zero target of below 2°C and close to 1.5°C, if possible. Benchmarks are good for assessing these institutions against these frameworks and levels, and it would be a big shot in the arm for all of these institutions—

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

I'm sorry to interrupt, Mr. Chair, but there is no interpretation for our members.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We'll have to stop there.

I think you said you had two points to make, Mr. Heaps. Those were the two points, were they not?

[Toby Heaps]

No.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Unfortunately, we don't have interpretation, so we're going to have to keep it—

[Toby Heaps]

Can you hear me better now?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Yes, I think so.

How do the interpreters feel about this?

Let's try it to see what happens.

[Toby Heaps]

The first point is for the Minister of Finance's annual report to include the federal financial institutions that I mentioned.

The other point, a subpoint, is for the Minister of Finance's annual report to include the percent of major suppliers to the federal government for net-zero alignment. There are about—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Madame Pauzé has her hand up.

Can you hear the interpretation?

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

No, there still isn't any interpretation. Given that Mr. Heaps has many good things to say, I'm a little frustrated.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay. It's unfortunate, but he still had the opportunity to make two important points.

Mr. Heaps, unfortunately, we don't have interpretation and the committee can only proceed with interpretation, so we're going to have to stop here.

[Toby Heaps]

I can confine it to 30 words, if I can have 30 words.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

No, I think we'll have to stop there, unfortunately, because the interpreters can't hear properly. I'm sorry about that.

Next is Dr. Madhur Anand, professor at the School of Environmental Sciences and director of the Guelph Institute for Environmental Research at the University of Guelph.

[Dr. Madhur Anand, Professor, School of Environmental Sciences and Director, Guelph Institute for Environmental Research, University of Guelph, As an Individual]

Thank you to all of the members of the committee for this opportunity, and a special hello to MP Lloyd Longfield.

My name is Madhur Anand. I am a professor in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of Guelph. My own research has examined the impacts of climate change on ecosystems in Canada and world-wide, and also how human behaviour and social dynamics can determine the success of climate change mitigation. Our research, some of which was just published yesterday, shows that a growing number of national-level climate agreements can tip the balance towards achieving global targets.

I'm also director of the Guelph Institute for Environmental Research where researchers across all seven of our colleges—engineers, ecologists, mathematicians, artists and economists—are all working on the interdisciplinary challenge of climate mitigation. No one group or sector will be able to solve it on its own.

Canada has not met its obligation to reduce emissions according to international climate agreements. This may very well be because we lacked legislation such as Bill C-12. Research on over a hundred countries world wide shows that passing a new climate law is correlated to reduced emissions, so there's hope here. This act is essential.

The remainder of my comments have to do with clause 10 of the bill, which describes the contents of the emissions reduction plan. This is because we simply cannot afford to reach clause 16 of the bill, which is failure to achieve targets. We know that time is short to head off a cascade of climate tipping points and the nation isn't going to get a second chance to do this right.

Regarding targets, found in paragraph 10(1)(a), the bill proposes using “the best scientific information available”. Emission targets will be very hard to detect without sustained scientific work in measurement, monitoring and modelling. The unaggregated data collected by various sectors need to be accessible to both scientists and the public.

Regarding scenario planning to meet the targets, assumptions about human behaviour and societal uptake of technological change must be very explicit and realistic. Our own research shows that social learning, incentivizing behavioural change and evolving social norms can influence the projected peak of global temperature by as much as one degree Celsius.

Emissions targets need to account for both social-cultural processes and political speed bumps. This could also include consequences of missing targets early on, the effects of which will be cumulative and even harder to mitigate.

Regarding paragraph 10(1)(b), which is “a description of key emissions reduction measures”, Canada needs to see the writing on the wall. A fossil fuel-free global economy is inevitable. The sooner Canada acts, the easier it will be to participate in the economy of the future instead of languishing in the past. We have evidence from over a dozen measures that have been effective in other countries at reducing emissions for the energy sector and much of this technology already exists.

Here, I want to focus on some other measures that are usually overlooked, namely land use changes including sectors of agriculture and forestry. Measures need to include not only just new emissions, but also carbon sinks. In other words, it is the way we manage cover crops, grasslands, peatlands and forests, and avoid land degradation. These are all things that can help us achieve our targets.

Alas, no new political or scientific measure can succeed if it does not have social approval. This brings me to my comments on paragraphs 10(1)(c) and 10(1)(d) on strategies.

Rapid societal change is possible. We have seen with the pandemic how willing the public and the private sectors are to work together for a common goal and to adopt new behaviours if they understand the risks and the benefits. The strategies should therefore demonstrate the economic, social and environmental benefits of emission reductions, so people and sectors can see the net benefits for Canada.

In developing its strategies, the government must consult not only with natural scientists and economists, but also with social scientists and those working across the arts both within and outside of academia and with indigenous groups, all of whom are able to help us change the language, the culture and the narrative around climate change mitigation.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thanks very much. That was five minutes on the dot.

Dr. Burch.

[Dr. Sarah Burch, Associate Professor, Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of Waterloo, Executive Director, Interdisciplinary Centre on Climate Change, As an Individual]

Hello, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. Thank you very much for the invitation to speak today at this critical turning point in the history of Canada's response to climate change.

My name is Dr. Sarah Burch. I'm an associate professor and Canada research chair in sustainability governance and innovation at the University of Waterloo. I'm also the newly appointed executive director of its Interdisciplinary Centre on Climate Change, which is a hub of over 100 faculty, scientists and students who explore the unfolding consequences of climate change and the solutions to it.

I'm a lead author of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's sixth assessment report, which, as you know, is currently under way. This is the largest scientific collaboration of its kind, and our assessments directly inform international negotiations on climate change, as well as national, provincial, state and even municipal climate change planning around the world.

As a person who focuses on transitions to low-carbon resilient communities, I'd like to take this time to add my voice to the chorus of scholars, advocates, business leaders, youth, indigenous knowledge holders, and decision-makers who know that Canada can demonstrate real leadership on this issue.

None of this will be new to you, but I'd like to clarify what we know for sure.

We know that climate is already changing. This isn't a problem for other people elsewhere at some distant point in the future. We know that our own activities and the burning of fossil fuels are largely responsible for those changes. There are impacts such as flooding, stress on ecosystems, loss of species, drought, extreme weather events, heat waves and fires, and we are seeing evidence of these impacts now, here in Canada.

This is a human issue, not simply an environmental one. Marginalized communities will suffer the most under a changing climate. We have seen this as the COVID pandemic has unfolded. Pre-existing inequalities were exposed and deepened as a result.

So what do we do?

The ambitions set out in the Paris Agreement will not be met without transformative levels of greenhouse gas reductions in synergy with actions that protect us from the impacts of climate change. Incremental greenhouse gas reductions, such as those obtained through modest efficiency gains in a system still fundamentally dependent on fossil fuels, will not lead to reductions of the pace and scale required to constrain warming to 2°C or less.

As we know, between 1990 and 2019 Canada's total greenhouse gas emissions increased by around 21%, and they decreased by only around 1% between 2015 and 2019. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, however, has clearly demonstrated that we have to cut emissions in half by 2030 if we're to avoid the most costly and irreversible effects of climate change. Given Canada's historical contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and our exceedingly high per-capita emissions, it's our responsibility to meet and exceed this call by the IPCC.

The U.K. has pledged to reduce greenhouse gases by 78% by 2035, in fulfillment of the statutory obligations laid out in its 2008 Climate Change Act. This is exciting, but it's not what interests me. Much more important is the progress it has made so far: Emissions in the U.K. have fallen by 51% since 1990. Likewise, Germany has committed to reducing its emissions by 65% by 2030, and the U.S. has now recently committed to a 52% reduction below 2005 levels by 2030. The stories behind progress in these countries are more complex than those targets would suggest, of course, but collectively they convey ambition and urgency.

However, targets, as we've seen, are insufficient. They're not in and of themselves action. Specific scalable policies and actions are required to deliver on those targets, along with clear mechanisms for assessing whether we're doing what we said we'd do. We have to hold ourselves accountable.

Furthermore, the cost of unbridled climate change vastly outstrips virtually any estimate of the cost of transitioning to a low-carbon economy. We must, however, recognize that some sectors and communities will bear a larger share of the burden of that transition. In a just transition, the costs of climate change mitigation are shared rather than placed heavily on marginalized communities and workers in certain sectors. These communities can be beneficiaries of the transition to a low-carbon resilient economy rather than collateral damage.

Pulling out specific points in relation to Bill C-12, my suggestions are as follow.

Bill C-12 should set a clear and achievable 2025 milestone so that we know sooner rather than later whether we're making progress. It should legislate a more ambitious emissions reduction target of at least 50% by 2030 to align with IPCC recommendations.

It should make clear who's responsible for reaching objectives and exactly how they'll reach them. There's a crucial missing link between objectives and measures.

It should clearly define a more robust role for the net-zero advisory body to help set this target, as well as review, assess and report on progress.

It should ensure that a just transition is supported federally, explicitly seeking synergies between adaptation, which means protecting ourselves from the consequences of climate change, and mitigation, which means dealing with the causes, while lifting the burden of the transition from marginalized communities.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We'll now turn to Mr. Henry from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. Henry, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Dr. Aaron Henry, Senior Director , Natural Resources and Sustainable Growth, Canadian Chamber of Commerce]

Thank you.

Chair and honourable members, it is a pleasure to appear before the environment and sustainable development standing committee to share my comments on Bill C-12. Thank you for the invitation.

For those I have not met, my name is Aaron Henry. I am the senior director of natural resources and sustainable growth at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. The Canadian Chamber represents over a quarter of a million businesses through our network.

I'd like to start by simply saying that in principle the Canadian Chamber is supportive of Bill C-12. However, we believe that there are some details within the legislation as it's proposed, as well as some mechanisms of execution, that could probably benefit from greater clarity and improvements to strengthen the confidence of Canada's business community in the act.

I would like, though, to start with what we see as a potential value of Bill C-12. I think in many respects it dovetails with some of the comments by the other speakers today.

If developed well and in consultation with Canada's business community, I think this bill could lead to greater policy, certainly in Canada. I think it could create stronger and mutual trust among government, business and Canadians in the pursuit of our efforts to decarbonize.

As many other speakers on this committee have noted on other days, we have a history of setting climate goals and failing to meet them. Not only does this undermine our efforts to meaningfully contribute to global efforts to combat climate change, but it poses a risk to Canada's leadership on the global stage and to its reputation. Also, from the business perspective, it creates a risk for paradigm swings in Canada's policy environment. This takes place as successive governments introduce new measures and more stringent regulations to close ground on lapsed targets. That, in itself, creates uncertainty for an investment environment. It makes it harder for businesses to adapt and cope, and to know where they stand. That, in turn, creates additional financial and political risk for Canadian businesses.

As such, in principle, legislation that increases the transparency and accountability of our efforts to achieve net zero has significant value, especially given that we are discussing policy choices that take shape over the span of decades.

With that said, the chamber recognizes the value in making a few improvements or changes to the legislation. The first is that we acknowledge that climate change has many different dimensions to it. How we approach net zero will have consequences that go beyond simply reducing emissions. There are implications for social inclusion. There are implications for Canada's economic prosperity and labour forces and for rural communities. As some of the witnesses who attended yesterday will attest, there are even public health dimensions.

In short, not all of the pathways to net zero are created equal. Some pathways will carry higher trade-offs than others. Some of them will achieve the desired environmental outcomes, but at the unnecessary expense of other social and economic factors.

While the goal of reducing emissions falls squarely within the remit of Environment and Climate Change Canada, I think those other dimensions demand the attention of other ministers for whom those issues fall within their portfolios. For that reason we'd like to make the suggestion that rather than having the minister approve a five-year plan, that should actually be a Governor in Council decision and made with cabinet.

At the same time, we are concerned that, as described, this legislation doesn't really give full consideration to the economic opportunities and consequences that are attendant to pursuing net zero. The goal of developing sectoral decarbonization strategies has the potential to create closer collaboration between government and industry to ensure greater policy certainty, but there are currently two gaps that I think need to be closed to achieve this.

First, there needs to be a clear economic lens built into the legislation. This lens should set parameters to ensure that the sectoral strategies developed by the proposed advisory body adhere to those parameters such as economic competitiveness, job creation, international opportunities for emission reductions, and the potential export advantages in commodities and clean technologies that Canada can leverage. At a minimum, there needs to be an economic lens that makes the criteria through which different sectoral decarbonization strategies are selected transparent and clear for all concerned stakeholders.

Second, we feel that a very high task has been placed before the net-zero advisory board. It's simply that having 15 people to successfully develop decarbonization plans for multiple economic sectors over multiple years is a big challenge. I think that challenge seems even greater given the absence of the direct inclusion on the advisory board, or through other mechanisms within the act, of industry expertise in developing these sectoral strategies.

Our recommendation would be that the legislation be amended to ensure that industry stakeholders—the stakeholders who are closest to the technological and business opportunities to lower emissions for their sector—are given a clear and formal role in developing sectoral decarbonization strategies.

Finally, we do have some concerns about the scope of the legislation—I think that's already been raised—and how exactly it will interact with provincial jurisdictions and the climate ambitions set by provincial governments. It would be helpful if there were some amendments that would clarify how the targets set by provinces will be integrated into this act. This will be critical in calibrating offset policy and carbon credit creation. It will be very important to ensure greater technological certainty around technologies that are eligible for offset creation and pass the test of additionality. Without strong coordination—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

We'll now move on to the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec.

Will Mr. Bolduc or Mr. Rondeau be speaking? Will you share the five minutes? It's up to you.