Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my friend and colleague the member for Kingston and the Islands.
It is my pleasure to rise today and speak in favour of this motion.
Over the summer, I conducted several town hall and coffee meetings in Burnaby and North Vancouver. At these meetings and on the doorstep, my constituents regularly raised their concerns with regard to the environment and what action this government is taking on climate change.
I spoke of these concerns on August 19 when I presented a report to the TMX ministerial panel in North Vancouver. I would like to read the ninth section of that report, entitled “Decision within the Context of Climate Change”, as I believe it is pertinent to today's debate:
Climate change is an immediate and significant threat to our communities and our economy.
Within the first thirty days of its mandate, the Federal Government took a leadership role in Paris with regards to tackling climate change.
Canada is providing national leadership on this issue and working with the provinces and territories to take collective action on climate change, put a price on carbon, and reduce carbon pollution.
These targets must recognize the economic cost and catastrophic impact that a greater-than-two-degree increase in average global temperature represents....
This June, Canada committed with the United States and Mexico to a North American Climate, Clean Energy and Environment partnership.
I believe it is our responsibility to create a legislative and market environment where individual consumers and businesses make climate friendly choices not because they are compelled to do so, but because it is the best economic decision. [Pricing carbon pollution] is a means to accomplish this.
Marketwide policy changes will have a more persistent and significant impact on climate change than focusing on the economic and environmental balance of individual projects.
Properly implemented, these policies will also provide greater certainty to decision makers over the long term, eliminating some of the ambiguity that communities and the private sector currently face.
There are more topics and more detail covered in the report, and anyone who is interested can read the full report at terrybeech-parl.ca.
However, I do not want to just talk about carbon pricing today, because there are many ways that we can work to reduce our carbon emissions.
One of the most significant immediate actions the international community could take to combat climate change and contribute to the goals of the Paris agreement is to amend the United Nations Montreal protocol to phase down hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs. HFCs are a family of potent greenhouse gases used as replacements for ozone-depleting chemicals being phased out under the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. They are greenhouse gases hundreds to thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide. HFCs are mainly used in refrigeration, air conditioning, insulating foams, and aerosol products.
Scientists estimate that globally over one billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent of HFCs is emitted every single year. That is the carbon dioxide equivalent of 291 coal-fired power plants or the annual emission from 211 million passenger vehicles. This number is growing rapidly as the demand for refrigeration and air conditioning is significantly increasing in developing countries.
That is why Canada and the parties to the Montreal protocol are working this year to negotiate an amendment for a global phase-down of HFCs, a move expected to avoid emissions of more than 75 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2050. This equates to up to half a degree Celsius of global warming by the end of this century. What is more, for some applications, replacing HFCs with climate-friendly refrigerants and technologies can improve energy efficiency by up to 50%, which can significantly reduce energy costs for consumers and businesses. Canada has taken a leadership role internationally in efforts to promote an ambitious HFC amendment under the Montreal protocol, notably by joining forces with Mexico and the United States in putting forward a North American proposal to include a phase-down of HFCs.
Moving away from HFCs will not only make an important contribution to combatting climate change, but it will provide companies in Canada and around the world an opportunity to share their expertise in technologies using climate-friendly alternatives, thereby promoting green growth in Canada and internationally. Indeed, some Canadian companies are already ahead of the game by leading the transition to non-HFC technologies. For instance, some Canadian supermarkets are converting their refrigeration systems to very low global warming technologies that are energy efficient and yield significant cost savings. In particular, Sobeys has converted more than 70 of its stores to be climate friendly, and it plans to extend such conversions to its 1,300 stores right across the country.
Meanwhile, major automobile manufacturers operating in Canada have started to manufacture new models with air conditioners using climate-friendly alternatives instead of HFCs.
Parties to the Montreal protocol are to conclude negotiations at their upcoming meeting from October 10 to 14 in Rwanda. In the lead-up to this meeting, Canada has been active in building support around the world for an ambitious HFC amendment. Notably, in July, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change participated in an extraordinary meeting of the parties, where the minister met with representatives of key countries, such as China, India, and Saudi Arabia, which we need to bring on board to ensure a comprehensive and effective HFC phase-down.
The minister has also co-chaired several meetings of “high ambition” countries, which notably contributed to the adoption of a New York declaration by the Coalition to Secure an Ambitious HFC Amendment.
Canada has also explicitly recognized that implementing an HFC amendment will require additional resources to assist developing nations. In that regard, Canada strongly supported the statement in this year's G7 declaration in which Canada and other G7 countries committed to providing additional support, through the Montreal protocol's multilateral fund, to developing countries for the implementation of an amendment.
On September 22, Canada joined a group of 16 industrialized countries in a declaration signalling that they stood ready to provide $27 million in additional funding to the multilateral fund as soon as 2017 if an amendment was adopted this year. We are not waiting for the adoption of a global agreement in order to take action at home. The Government of Canada plans to publish, by the end of 2016, proposed regulatory measures to implement a phase-down of HFCs in Canada.
However, Canada represents only a small share of global emissions. This is why Canada has not only been pushing for an agreement under the Montreal protocol. It has also undertaken a range of other initiatives internationally to promote action on HFCs in advance of a global phase-down. For instance, Canada is co-leading an HFC initiative under the Climate and Clean Air Coalition to reduce short-lived climate pollutants, an international partnership composed of 50 countries and more than 60 non-governmental organizations. This initiative is active in promoting alternatives to HFCs worldwide through technology conferences, demonstration projects, and case studies. This will help galvanize political support across the globe for an HFC amendment under the protocol.
In addition, Canada has been collaborating with the World Bank to promote HFC reductions in the World Bank's investment and project portfolio.
In short, Canada is undertaking continuous and targeted efforts, both internationally and domestically, to champion concrete actions on climate change; and yesterday's announcement is just the beginning of what we can do.