Environment committee  It's a very big role, as big as we can get it.

Environment committee  A deep building retrofit can bring down energy use in a building by 50% to 80%, whereas a regular retrofit—when we're not thinking in terms of systems—is only 20% to 30%. If we focus on the method by which we'll do it, we can get those really deep reductions. That's how we're going to support populations, households and businesses in this energy transition, and concerns around any rising costs—for example, the inflation we're experiencing right now.

Environment committee  Canada did pretty well with the feed-in tariffs, but then a lot of those programs and a lot of the contracts were cancelled, which is unfortunate. A few places that are leading.... Vietnam had one of the most rapid uptakes of renewable energy, starting with solar photovoltaic and then wind.

Environment committee  Thanks for summarizing that, and thank you for the question. Those tax measures appear to me to be more on incubating and accelerating technology. Is that correct?

Environment committee  Okay. Where I would say there needs to be more support is.... There are different stages of technology diffusion. One of the areas where technology tends to get really stuck is in the diffusion stage, which means making it into markets and making it into communities. What we need are basically the market pull types of regulatory and economic instruments and administrative supports, and I would say that Canada can uptake those.

Environment committee  This is a really good question. Those are absolutely what we should be thinking about and where we should be going. Addressing climate change and energy use at the urban scale is a really critical lever that we have. For example, having waste heat capture and usage on the neighbourhood scale would be a really great way to reduce waste heat, and also, then, to use waste heat and reduce fossil fuel emissions.

Environment committee  Yes, absolutely. I'll start with the climate crisis. What we're seeing around the globe and here in Canada—I've experienced it both in Toronto and in British Columbia—is around extreme events and weather hazards due to climate change. This could be extreme heat events requiring a lot of air conditioning.

Environment committee  Absolutely. Basically, these are technologies that are ready to go and are implementable on fairly short time scales, as long as we have really good policy and program design, which means administrative, regulatory and economic instruments and that type of thing. These are technologies that are proven, so they can be implemented on a short time scale.

Environment committee  Not currently, no.

Environment committee  In terms of their utilization, one of the biggest barriers is lack of policy for their uptake. We've had really successful policies in Canada, such as feed-in tariff laws that allowed for a lot of different types of communities and organizations to develop these. Europe is continuing this with the new energy communities and renewable energy communities laws.

Environment committee  I've looked at—

Environment committee  Yes, absolutely. I think it's a really important part of a just energy transition. This is what we hear everywhere. I think quite a few organizations in Canada are willing and able to start to support workforce transition in this area.

Environment committee  Hello. Thank you for having me here. My Canada tri-council-funded research focuses on renewable energy transitions for communities in Canada and on nearly every continent. Canada can reach its 2030 targets to uphold its pledge made to the UNFCCC, which are only eight years away, if we follow the evidence on our fastest, cheapest options that also improve social and economic benefits in a socially and economically just manner.

Environment committee  Yes. That's what my Canada research chair, which was approved by external reviewers, is based on.

Environment committee  Not necessarily. My research is looking at.... I just published a paper in which we analyzed 47 of the most ambitious city renewable energy plans. We found that in a lot of places there is a reliance on rural areas. There's a lot of regional partnership between large municipalities and smaller municipalities.