Environment committee  How are we as a nation doing with respect to our obligations and commitments to climate change efforts?

Environment committee  Unconstrained, it gets ahead of the policy debates and creates a space for Canadians to talk about climate change within a broader perspective. Climate change is not only an environmental issue. As you well know, it's a transportation issue, it's an energy issue, and it's a resource development issue.

Environment committee  The environment commissioner goes on to say more in the 2000 report--there seems to be a bit of a pattern here--making the point that there were “persistent problems with the federal government's management of key issues like climate change, toxic substances and biodiversity.” I continue to quote: “As a result, commitments made to Canadians were not”--I underline “were not”--“being met.” Then again, we could carry on here.

Environment committee  I think the motion before us is appropriate, obviously, and in view of the minister's coming and giving of his time today, something we should all want for our children and our grandchildren is the very best in terms of the meetings in Bali of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The truth is pretty simple, and it's quite clear as well. Numerous people around the world have been catching on to that fact: we have to involve all these other players in the world, particularly the big countries.

Environment committee  Over the last few months, Canada has been at the forefront of international action on climate change, including the leadership the Prime Minister showed at the G8, and again at the APEC summit, and then also at the United Nations, most recently in Kampala, Uganda, with a realistic plan, saying maybe what others were fearful to say.

Environment committee  Not only will this permit Canada to continue to take a leadership role, but it will also provide absolute reductions in greenhouse gases globally, which will deal with the issue of the growing climate change crisis. I think it's an appropriate motion. Again, it recognizes the support that Parliament has given, the endorsement that Parliament has given--

Environment committee  I move that the committee thank the minister for setting out Canada's position on Indonesia for the upcoming UN conference on climate change and offer best wishes and a successful conclusion to the conference.

Environment committee  Based on the minister's presentation, I would like to table a motion that proposes the following: That through its chair, the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development write to the Minister of the Environment in order to share with him their wish to see him, on the occasion of the 13th Party Conference on Climate Change, make a commitment to reduce greenhouse gases by 20% in comparison with 1990 levels by 2020, and to accept Europe's invitation to reduce levels of emissions by 30%, if all developed countries support it.

Environment committee  This is just one of the many examples we see around the country of what is likely the effect of climate change. It's incredibly disturbing, and we're pretty concerned about it. On conservation, we're blessed with a lot of the world's forests, and protecting the boreal forest is important.

Environment committee  The point is that I think Canadians want to see us take real action at home and be leaders here in terms of taking action with hard targets on climate change, hard caps for emitters across the country, instead of intensity targets. I guess what I have trouble with is that you don't seem to recognize that.

Environment committee  Minister, it seems to me that Canadians would feel, and do feel, that every person on the planet should do their share in terms of combating the problem of climate change. In that regard, I have the feeling that this whole issue of China and India is a bit of a red herring. Yes, we're concerned about it, but we have to do our part, and it's not clear to me that we are doing our part.

Environment committee  Some analysts maintain that if China and other emerging industrial economies do not succeed in controlling their greenhouse gas emissions, catastrophic climate change will become inevitable. The figure shows the evolution of emissions from coal-fired power plants in China. With the 2,300 new plants that China is planning to build by 2020, the next spike will be approximately here, whereas Canada's, which is very small, will be down at the bottom.

Environment committee  Chairman. Minister, one very important principle in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is that countries have common, but differentiated, responsibilities. There are two very important words in that principle: first, the word "common". Everyone agrees that we all live on the same planet, and breathe the same air.

Environment committee  There was somebody in the room, at the discussion in Montreal in September, who was actually an adviser to the Minister of the Environment in 1987, and she simply says that had Canada adopted the approach that is being offered by the minister today on climate change, there would have been no Montreal Protocol. Thank you.

Environment committee  The science is demonstrably stronger. The effects are demonstrably stronger with respect to the impacts of climate change, even more so than the ozone-depleting substances. That's why we need everyone on board. That's the kind of aggressive action we're going to seek abroad. It's an interesting strategy to negotiate.