Environment committee  Do you want to fill in?

Environment committee  This is something that we haven't landed on officially yet, but Canada has indicated in past communications with the UN that we do plan to, as per the rules of the Paris Agreement and other agreements that preceded it, account for the carbon sequestered in immense forests here in Canada—

Environment committee  Yes, we're landing on a quantification methodology now and hoping to report on that very soon. That's something that has been a placeholder in our past reporting while we sort out the methodology. It's more complicated in Canada than it is in smaller countries, and it's something that we're trying to get right so that we can accurately account for it.

Environment committee  Not necessarily. Land use, the carbon sequestration associated with—

Environment committee  Yes, but it's a net accounting. If there are changes in the forest stock, either from logging or from forest fires, that affects the map of our accounting. This is something that we're building into our accounting, along with our direct emissions.

Environment committee  It would be best to have an expert from the Canadian Forest Service here. They are working on this as a full-time job. My understanding is that there is a carbon accounting that involves both the release from logging or forest fires but also sequestration from increased forest cover.

Environment committee  It's a complicated accounting where we're looking at what is considered the managed forest, which isn't the summation of the entirety of the boreal and other forests here in Canada. I'm really not the expert in this area.

Environment committee  It's a very big number. I'd be hesitant to speculate about the precise number, but it's certainly quite significant. It's not just Canada. Forest fires are an increasing source of emissions in many countries around the world.

Environment committee  I'm sorry, I don't have those numbers in front of me. We have an inventory group that keeps track of these numbers. They're not represented here today, but they are quite significant.

Environment committee  A number of measures are being pursued in a number of countries to address fire suppression, but in terms of the target setting it's generally not part of the commitments. The commitments are more focused on direct emissions from tailpipes and smokestacks. It is certainly something the international community is very aware of, and there are a number of countries, including in Latin America, that are looking at fire suppression.

Environment committee  It's a tough question. I think our focus has really been on the biggest sources of emissions. You start with the biggest sources of emissions and work forward in the spirit of fishing where the fish are in terms of emissions. We have focused on the largest sources of emissions, whether it's electricity generation, heavy industry, the transportation sector and the building stock.

Environment committee  We're missing one key set of players at this table, which is our experts on adaptation. I think one of our concerns is that you can adapt to certain things and you can't adapt to others. The costs of trying to adapt to the impacts of climate change become prohibitive when you get past a certain threshold.

Environment committee  We are trying to account for the emissions associated with “natural events” even if climate change is human-induced. The reporting requirements for the United Nations are narrowly focused on human emissions, so emissions from tailpipes and smokestacks, but we know, of course, that we're monitoring the concentrations in the atmosphere and we know very much that a lot of emissions are coming from events like forest fires and other things like volcanic eruptions.

Environment committee  I think we'd have to follow up with our sector experts in our regulatory branch, including those who deal with the Cement Association, the cement industry and the electricity industry. We can return to the committee and provide additional information, if that's helpful.

Environment committee  I'd be pleased to pick up on that point. I think there's a lot to be learned from a number of other countries, particularly developed OECD countries. Each of them is doing something well. Japan, for example, has put a number of measures in place to maximize energy efficiency, for example, and has really greatly reduced the amount of energy consumed per unit of production, per household, per square foot of office space, and so forth.