Natural Resources Committee on March 23rd, 2022

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you.

Am I fair in saying to you, then, Mr. Merk, that you don't believe a production cap is appropriate, but that an emissions cap is what we should work towards?

[Olaf Merk]

I don't think I have enough expertise on the oil and gas sector to have an opinion on the desirability of a production or an emission cap for that sector. I was simply speaking on the transport sector.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Okay.

I only have seconds left, so I'm going to go to Mr. La Camera to see if he has any comments on my question.

Do you think the target is achievable in Canada based on the current trajectory or an approach that could be taken short of what Mr. Anderson has suggested?

[Francesco La Camera]

Naturally, I am not doing politics. I think that we have to make clear two things.

One is that being in line with the Paris Agreement requires immediate action and immediately changing the trends that we have in front of us, because, as we are going to say in the global outlook report that we will launch in two weeks, we are at risk if we continue as we are doing. Globally speaking, we have no option to stay at the 1.5°C. The 1.5°C objective is vanishing. This is happening globally.

Concerning Canada, if I may, I think that Canada is not in a position to reach their target and be coherent with the 1.5°C. This will really be a disaster. I think that Canada is one of the countries that really may lead the path to the 1.5°C. Today, with Canada, we are working on green innovation and trying to mix that with people exchanging ideas. No one today has spoken about green hydrogen. I think this is one of the themes that should be on the table. It's not just a question of one measure to be there to be pursued. I think that green hydrogen could be the best way for Canada for dealing with the electrification of the end-use system.

I wish to comment briefly on the CCS—

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

If I can interrupt, please, we're out of time here. We need to move to the next speakers, but yes, very briefly, wrap up your thoughts, please.

[Francesco La Camera]

[Inaudible—Editor] there is no future.

For CCS, there is a possibility, but trying to be coherent with the fact that we have to get results before 2030 and to put in place CCS will take some years, and it is not always working well. But we say, and my thought on this is, that in particular circumstances, where an economy is going green and depends largely on fossil fuels, CCS could be a transitional instrument to put hydrogen in the market.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you.

Now we're going to move to Monsieur Simard for six minutes.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would just like to repeat to the witnesses that I have the utmost respect for them, contrary to what someone was saying earlier, and that my initiative was not intended to waste their time, far from it. Everyone was informed of this motion. But let's move on to something else.

I would like to put a brief question to Mr. Anderson.

Bruno Detuncq came to talk to us about carbon capture and sequestration strategies. He told us not only that it was difficult to do technically, but also that environmental hazards were involved. He also said that the positive literature on the capture, utilization and storage of CO₂, or CCUS, mainly came from people close to the oil and gas sector.

So I would like to know what Mr. Anderson thinks about those technologies, based on progress in his research and his reflections.

[Kevin Anderson]

I think carbon capture and storage has a role to play in removing process emissions, particularly from cement. For the fossil fuel sector, it has been used for 20 to 30 years to delay action on fossil fuels. Today the carbon capture and storage around the globe is about seven million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, according to the Global CCS Institute. That's 0.02% of the global CO2 emissions that we emit. It has done almost nothing so far, and even by 2030, following the pathway of the Global CCS Institute, it would still capture and store only about 0.1% of current global CO2 emissions.

If we are serious about the carbon budgets and what the physics tell us for the 1.5°C or even the 2°C rate, we do not have the time frame to get this technology up and running. In addition, I think it's probably not so much that it's dangerous, but it has very significant life-cycle emissions. It is not zero emissions. It has very high life-cycle emissions, so I think it is too—

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Anderson.

I don't have much time, so I would like to put a very quick question to you.

Some people have come here to present the idea that emissions, rather than production, should be capped. Yet we have heard witnesses say that it was a myth to think we could get results by putting a cap on emissions only, and not on production.

Can you tell us in clear terms whether it is necessary, in your opinion, to cap production?

[Kevin Anderson]

I think it is necessary to cap production and to have emissions controls on the use of fossil fuels as well.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you very much for your clear and precise answer.

I would now like to put a question to Mr. La Camera.

You talked about sustainable biomass and green hydrogen, and you said we need drastic change.

I want to point out that Canadian hydrogen policy does not say that one type of hydrogen should be promoted over another type. I feel that the Canadian government will try to emphasize blue hydrogen through a carbon capture strategy, which, as we know, may not be entirely appropriate.

Could you talk to us about green hydrogen?

Do you think the government should promote a type of hydrogen in the financial support it will provide to this industry?

[Francesco La Camera]

I cannot respond directly as to what Canada should do, but our position is that in countries where the economy is very dependent on fossil fuels, CCS could be an instrument in the transition phase to deal with lowering emissions for the fossil fuel sector. In the medium to long term, there is no doubt that the best option is to go for green hydrogen. This applies not only to Canada but to every place in the world. Also, producing hydrogen through renewables will give more independence to the countries that are already dependent on oil and gas for their energy systems.

In the short term in particular circumstances, I think CCS could be used, but in the medium to long term, there is no way other than green hydrogen, in our opinion. But I'm talking in general terms, not for Canada.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

You are saying that green hydrogen should be promoted. What is the best way to do that? What measures can the government implement in that direction?

You talked about sustainable biomass, but you have not elaborated on it. I would like to hear your thoughts on that.

[Francesco La Camera]

Sustainable biomass could be relevant, because this is one of the areas in which, by applying the use of biomass with carbon capture and storage, we can have negative emissions. It could be one way to reduce more dramatically the emissions themselves. There are areas in the world where biomass could be used in a sustainable way and might make a strong contribution to reducing CO2 emissions.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Do you think biomass can be used in hydrogen production?

[Francesco La Camera]

I do not, really. I'm talking about hydrogen being produced by renewables. This would mean solar, wind and water. This is our opinion.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you. We're out of time.

We're going to Mr. Angus for his six minutes.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you so much to our witnesses.

Professor Anderson, your report is pretty shocking. It was sent to me by three young people, who said, “Have you seen this? Have you looked at this?” I see a sense of urgency in your report, a sense of urgency I see in the IPCC's latest report, a sense of urgency that obviously you might feel is a little lacking here. I want to invite you to the parliamentary version of the Netflix show Don't Look Up, with Canadian accents, except that we've been watching this comet coming for 20 years and telling ourselves we can punt it down the road.

You say that even with the urgency, even if we take all these actions, we have only a fifty-fifty chance of making it to 1.5°C. What happens if we don't meet that target?

[Kevin Anderson]

Every fraction of a degree matters. If we don't hit 1.5°C, then we get additional sets of impacts. Let's be clear: 1.5°C is not a safe threshold. It is an incredibly dangerous threshold to many people around the world, particularly in some of the poorer, more vulnerable parts of the world. We are already seeing the impacts of 1°C even in some parts of Canada and other parts of the global north. If we fail at 1.5, we might get 1.6 or 1.7. Every part of a degree will increase the impacts and increase the risk that we will get these other feedbacks, which some people call tipping points. We should make every effort we can to hold towards 1.5°C.

Unfortunately, thus far, for almost a third of a century now, we have done virtually nothing but watch emissions rise. We are on the path to a much higher temperature.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you.

I live in northern Canada where -45° is a norm in the winter, but in the summer we're looking at devastating fires, fires of intensity that are very frightening. People are concerned about the weather.

I just want to say, my Liberal colleague thought you were being a little mean by saying that Canada hadn't shown any leadership, but our own environment commissioner just released a report where he called us an international outlier for our failure to act on emissions.

The Canada Energy Regulator is predicting a one million barrel per day increase in the coming years with only a slight decrease by 2050, but we're being told that as long as it's all exported overseas, none of that will be counted as part of our carbon budget.

Can we do a one million barrel per day increase towards 2050 and give our children a livable future?

[Kevin Anderson]

Not if you think physics has any validity.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Certainly, we get a lot of lobbyists who I believe think the opposite. We asked the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers how they were going to meet our climate goals. They said their solution was to vastly increase production for the global south.

The reason we're here is that our Prime Minister went to COP26 and made a big announcement about an emissions cap, so we're looking at this emissions cap. We now learn that the Minister of Environment has punted this off for at least another year.

Given the rising emissions, given the plans that we see for increased production, given that some of my colleagues in the other parties think the war in Ukraine will give us a great opportunity to vastly increase production, and given the urgency of what's in your report, does it make sense to put that emissions cap off for any length of time?

[Kevin Anderson]

I would say the situation now, as a consequence of Ukraine and the impact on oil prices and so forth, demonstrates that we should have put that emissions cap in a long time ago. If we had actually moved to renewables, we wouldn't be seeing the volatility in the prices we are seeing today. The idea that we're going to lock ourselves into yet more fossil fuels seems to completely misunderstand the situation we're in.

At this very moment, we need immediate demand management amongst those of us who use the lion's share of our energy, and we need to rapidly roll out renewables. It's a combination of demand management and renewables, not turning back to the last century and saying let's dig out some more oil and gas.

We have to take some notice of the science and the physics because, in the end, the climate doesn't care about our short-term politics, our Machiavellian policies and our accountancy scams. It only cares about CO2 molecules, and that's the science.