Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the excellent member for Edmonton Strathcona.
I am very happy that this debate is happening. We, along with the member for Beaches—East York and the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, requested an emergency debate on this very important topic.
The report released by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is extremely important because it highlights to our government and governments from around the world why it is crucial that we work together. The report also shows that we must stop looking for excuses to do nothing, as we have been doing for 30 years. This is exactly what happened in all of the discussions.
I am very happy to see that governments are getting together to debate these questions, as we saw in Kyoto, Copenhagen and Paris. However, at the end of the day, governments are avoiding the only logical and ultimately responsible solution of setting binding targets. Every possible excuse comes up during negotiations. The meeting in Paris is probably the best example of that. People claim to want to go a certain way knowing full well that nothing will happen if they fail. We will not get anywhere like this.
Canada cannot go it alone. The NDP agrees with the arguments some members made to that effect. The question is not whether we should act alone. If we want to be a world leader in the fight against climate change, we need to set an example, decide to take effective action to resolve our own problem and work with other countries so that they do the same.
Where do we stand right now? I do not want to make this a partisan debate, but there are some things that I want to point out. The Paris Agreement initially proposed keeping the global temperature increase this century to two degrees. Canada worked to set that target at 1.5 degrees instead. In its most recent report, the IPCC confirmed that this was the target that we should be trying to meet. If Canada wants to do that, we need to lower our emissions to 325 million tonnes by 2030. However, according to the government's latest performance report, we will only be able to reduce them to 500 million tonnes, which is a far cry from the target.
That is a problem because we cannot require other countries to meet the Paris targets if we cannot do so ourselves. As an economist, I agree with the comments made to the effect that, if we act unilaterally, it could be harmful to our economy. That is true. That is why we all need to act. The IPCC is not a Canadian organization. It is an international organization.
We recognize the need to act and to get the necessary tools to do so. That means that we need to talk about certain things and start promoting them. That could be a carbon tax or an emissions ceiling. Economists agree that that is the way to go. My economist colleagues are likely familiar with the term “Pigovian tax”, which is a tax that seeks to change people's behaviour.
The problem right now is that we have no incentive to change our behaviour. Without incentives, people will not change their lifestyle. They might make some minor adjustments, but that will do nothing to stop us from crashing an burning sooner or later. Many Quebeckers know that we should drive electric cars, or at least very fuel efficient cars. People know that; surveys show that we need to head in that direction. Even so, more and more SUVs are being sold, and not just here but across North America.
There is a big difference between what people know they should be doing and what they actually do. Talking about the right thing to do and encouraging people to do it is not going to fix the problem.
I referred to the fact that for the last three years we had not done much because all nations of this world, including Canada, were finding ways at every conference not to do anything that could constrain them into action.
I read a newspaper article that quoted John Sununu, who used to be a member of the U.S. cabinet. He was one of the people responsible for the failed climate change negotiations of 1989. He said that political leaders at the time were just pretending they cared about the issue. They said the right things, but never did anything. In a recent interview, he said that the leaders did not want to make hard commitments that would cost them serious resources. In his opinion, that is where we are today.
Eddie Goldenberg, Jean Chrétien's chief of staff, said more or less the same thing about Canada's decision to sign the Kyoto protocol. In 2002, he said that they knew when they signed the protocol that it was extremely ambitious and that it would be difficult to meet the targets. He doing nothing would have been worse and that the government had to sign the protocol. He also said that the Liberal government of the day never seriously intended to do anything. That is the very problem the IPCC has called out in report after report.
We know that we are going to hit a wall. We have to do something. The solution will not be unilateral on the part of one government or another. We have to work together.
When every government finds an excuse, expresses good intentions without doing anything tangible about it, claims they are doing something when in reality they are not, I fear for future generations.
I have children aged nine and six. They are the ones who will suffer the consequences of climate change and the extreme events we are unfortunately getting used to seeing more and more. I am referring to the fires in British Columbia and the western U.S., as well as the heat waves. This summer, in Montreal, there were five or six heat waves that took the lives of 70 people. That never used to happen.
My part of the country, the Lower St. Lawrence, is known for its damp climate and rolling fog. However, we have experienced extreme drought conditions the last two summers. We had no rain for a month and a half in August and September. That was also the case this past summer. I was in Rimouski the entire summer and it rained maybe four or five days. For the past two years, farmers have only had one cut of hay per year because there has not been enough rain to have two cuts. There is no longer enough winter silage in eastern Quebec.
UPA, the Union des producteurs agricoles, is sounding the alarm and has pointed out that Quebec experienced the most serious drought in 50 years this past summer. We need to take action. Where are the concrete measures?
The Conservatives established greenhouse gas reduction targets, but did nothing to achieve them. The Liberal government is telling us that it is headed in the right direction and that it will support the Paris climate agreement, but it is not changing the objectives. If the Conservatives did not attain these objectives, and the Liberals are also failing, we are not in a position to provide assurances that Canada will do its part.
I am pretty sure that we are one of the only countries that is debating the matter in a legislative chamber this evening. If we do nothing, how can we set an example for other countries and ask them to do something? If we do nothing, how can we demonstrate leadership?
The transition to renewable energies and greener energy should not be viewed in terms of job losses and costs to consumers. This transition provides new opportunities and can be positive for us and, more importantly, for our children. If we do not embrace this vision, we will not be able to do much or claim to be a leader, which is the image Canada wants to project internationally at this time.
I encourage everyone in this House to stop making excuses for not doing what needs to be done. I encourage everyone to think carefully about what we can do immediately to reach our Paris targets. We need to work with our international partners so that they, too, can benefit from this transition, which must be done on behalf of future generations.
