Mr. Speaker, we just had a great environment committee meeting to discuss the development of a national conservation plan. I commend her for her commitment to these issues, but there are some things I want to talk about tonight and clarify some of the points she made.
First, she talked about the concept of abdication of responsibility. In fact, in the past, during the Liberal government's tenure, greenhouse gas emissions in our country rose by almost 30% over some of the Kyoto targets. Perhaps she could answer how many megatonnes of carbon emissions the Liberal government put into the atmosphere through its inaction on climate change.
This is so important because it is the same concept, when we look at international agreements, to ensure that we have a reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions. When the Kyoto protocol was ratified, it included less than 30% of the major greenhouse gas emitters. Now that figure is considerably less. Maybe she could answer how many megatonnes are released into the atmosphere because major emitters like Brazil, India and China are not party to that agreement.
By contrast, our government stands for the creation of an international agreement which sees all major emitters coming to the table under international binding targets and stringent reporting mechanisms. This will ensure real action in the reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions in contrast to her party's inaction in this area and unfortunate mismanagement.
The other thing I am curious to understand from her is this. She talked about the need for climate change adaptation, yet she and her party voted against our budgetary measures designed to support a transition to the climate change adaptation research into the field. She often talks in the House of Commons about the need to support scientists, yet these very fundamental budgetary measures to support research and action in this area are voted against by the Liberal Party. It is quite unfortunate.
By contrast, our government has a real action-focused plan. It is one that understands the need to both balance economic growth and environmental stewardship. We are approaching our greenhouse gas emissions targets in a very fundamental action-focused way by looking at regulations on a sector-by-sector approach.
We understand that the transportation sector is one which is a major cause of greenhouse gas emissions. We have started with regulations in that area. We are currently looking at the electricity sector, but I would note that Canada's electricity sector is one of the cleanest in the world, with over 75% of our electricity generated by non-carbon emitting sources. However, even in that we are looking at ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through a regulatory approach and we are looking at other regulations in other areas as well.
We are doing this in consultation with industry groups, affected stakeholders, communities and academia because our government understands both the need for action and the need to implement it, but also to do it in such a way that it does not detrimentally impact our economy.
We are proud of this balanced approach. It is something that we are hearing from Canadians. They understand the need for jobs and economic growth and to balance that within a strong environmental stewardship plan. We feel very strongly that the sector-by-sector regulatory approach takes that action.
Therefore, in the spirit of the good discussions that we had this afternoon in the environment committee, I would ask the member to look at the real action plan that we have, to get behind it and support some of our budgetary measures in these important areas.