Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, fellow members. It's always nice to see you, especially when Parliament resumes after we've spent a week in our respective ridings.
Witnesses, thank you for being with us, and welcome to the committee. I also want to thank you for dedicating your talents and energies to the good of the country as Canadian public servants. We greatly appreciate it.
We are all gathered here to be as effective as possible in the fight against climate change. We recognize that climate change is real, that we have to adapt to its effects and that adequate measures have to be put in place, particularly when it comes to funding. For example, we need to find ways to fund the best approaches and guide businesses and financiers in the choices they make to fight climate change. However, these measures have to be effective.
A few days ago, the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development tabled a series of very scathing reports on Canada's approach over the past nine years. The commissioner concluded quite bluntly that Canada is not on track to meet the 2030 targets, which, you'll recall, are based on the Paris agreement. Let me point out that the targets in the agreement were exactly the same as those set by the previous government, down to the decimal point. According to the report by the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development, Canada has the worst record in the G7. As you see, we are a long way from meeting expectations.
Here, we zero in on a major problem. We have to find a way to assess the effectiveness of environmental measures. These measures guide businesses in their financial choices, whether it be funding pension funds or investing in green energy or a green approach. The results have to be conclusive, and above all, the calculations have to be accurate.
The commissioner wrote, “The recent decreases to projected 2030 emissions were not due to climate actions taken by governments but were instead because of revisions to the data or methods used in modelling.” That's not us saying it; it's the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development.
Mr. Barbe, you play a major role at the Department of the Environment. How do you explain the fact that everyone is happy to see that the targets seem to have been met, but that the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development says that they haven't actually been met and that the results are instead due to changes made to the calculation method?