Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to the committee for inviting me to present today on this critically important issue.
Carbon Infrastructure Partners is a private equity firm that is invested in oil and gas production, and we've also created a fund product to advance investment in carbon capture and storage.
It is clear and urgent that we have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by fossil fuels, and that reaching our net-zero goal by 2050 is an unprecedented challenge.
In the past 100 years, the global population has grown nearly fourfold to almost eight billion people because of reliable and affordable energy, largely from fossil fuels. Solving climate change by 2050 is not as simple as eliminating fossil fuels and may be self-defeating. The objective should not be to eliminate fossil fuels. The objective should be to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions.
I can summarize my message today in four key points.
One, we cannot reach net zero by 2050 without fossil fuels. It is simply physically impossible. Two, attempting to reach 2050 goals without fossil fuels raises serious risk for policy-makers and governments in their being able to sustain the long-term public support required for climate action. Three, while we cannot use fossil fuels without carbon capture and storage, this is the purpose of the investment tax credit announced by the government, and it needs to be promoted aggressively. Four, the investment tax credit needs to be complemented by the carbon tax. Investors in carbon capture and storage need to have certainty that carbon pricing is entrenched and that a new government cannot kill it or reduce it.
Let me qualify these points further.
First, we have 28 years to do away with 750 million tonnes of GHG emissions in Canada, and it is simply impossible to rally the magnitude of capital needed to invest in sufficient alternative energies.
Second, without sufficient and reliable alternative energy, in times of high energy demand, the risk is inherent that energy prices will spike. People will not be able to afford to heat and cool their homes, and industry will not be able to produce many of the products we all rely upon. This is not speculation. This is precisely what happened in Europe prior to the Russian invasion, where insufficient reliable alternative energies forced a surge in fossil fuel use, including coal, pushing natural gas prices to $60 per mcf versus $3 to $4, as it is now in Canada.
Support for CCUS is not a subsidy for the oil and gas industry, as some argue. It's a critical investment in reaching net zero.