Thank you, Madam Chair.
It's my great pleasure to appear before the committee today. Thank you for this opportunity.
The ultimate moon shot of this century is climate survival. Without climate mitigation, our future will be confined under the weight of many concurrent catastrophes: mass numbers of refugees, new human health crises, food security challenges and, ultimately, a weakened economy and a weakened quality of life.
The question that remains, then, is, how do we achieve this moon shot? How do we improve the lives of Canadians and support Canada to deliver an outsized impact for the world?
Canada recognizes the critical importance of decarbonization to our planet and our nation's future. We're actively working towards net-zero emissions by 2050, but that's simply not enough, not by a long shot. To reach our goal of climate survival, we need to get to net-negative, in fact, and today you'll hear about a new partnership between universities in Atlantic Canada and Quebec that will transform Canada's climate action.
One important consideration in reaching net-negative is that our climate solutions are currently focused on the uptake of carbon on land and the blue carbon sometimes stored within our coastal waters. However, our research shows that these carbon sinks are simply a drop in the bucket. They are just not enough.
More than 90% of carbon is actually stored in the ocean, the majority of which is located in the high seas beyond national jurisdiction. It is known as deep blue carbon. If we really want to make an impact on the global carbon budget, which is the only way to save the world from itself, we must turn our attention to deep blue carbon and the emerging science of ocean-based carbon dioxide removal, or CDR. This includes innovation and a suite of technologies, many Canadian-born, that could take carbon from the atmosphere and safely sequester it in the deep sea.
Canada actually has the opportunity to bring meaningful climate leadership in this area. Deep blue carbon and ocean-based CDR—carbon dioxide removal—represent a potential global climate solution. Committing to this solution will encourage research investment right here at home while providing both environmental and economic benefits to Canada. It will also give us information about the time scales of climate change and how the ocean is responding, which helps us frame the social adaptation that our communities need to address the current global climate crisis. For example, sea-level rise, drought and catastrophic hurricanes are all directly related to the ocean and the ocean's impact on our climate.
The reason this is a moon shot is that it will require a huge lift of support. Research generally progresses slowly, and this needs to move quickly. In fact, it needs to move very fast. There are ocean CDR practitioners with huge amounts of capital to put towards this effort, but they're looking to us for guidance on how to use it effectively.
Strategic and sustained ocean observation and ocean and climate science synthesis is a major gap that must urgently be addressed. We need a system that can monitor what is happening in the ocean in real time, which would enable improved climate forecasts, better climate mitigation methods and facilitate what has the promise to be a trillion-dollar deep blue carbon credit market.
One solution proposed by us at the Ocean Frontier Institute is an ocean carbon observatory that would bring nations together to frame this problem properly and to help implement a collective solution: a regional exemplar or example in the North Atlantic.
We are already revving this engine with the recent submission of Dalhousie University's transforming climate action proposal. This is a joint initiative with the Université du Québec à Rimouski, Memorial University of Newfoundland and Université Laval to the Canada first research excellence fund. This proposal represents a groundbreaking alliance between French- and English-speaking ocean-focused institutions.
Let's recap. The moon shot of our time is climate survival. It requires increased ocean observation of deep blue carbon beyond national jurisdiction and the safe implementation of ocean-based carbon dioxide removal technologies at scale, which only the ocean can offer. There is an urgent need for a moon shot-type program that can enable transformative global initiatives that transcend the priorities of individual regions and individual department mandates in government. We have less than eight years to avoid a future shaped by climate catastrophe, and every day the global climate crisis clock is ticking. This is where we need to put our energy. If not now, when?