Environment committee  I'm talking about the model. The other thing is that they sat down and said, “How do we convert this emissions challenge to a product list?” The actual products are broken into three categories, and there are hundreds of products on the list. I'm not saying this is easy. I'm just saying it's easier than what we're trying to otherwise do in Kyoto.

Environment committee  The key deal is saying, “I have a schedule that is long term and covers 70 years for phasing out the production of key--”

Environment committee  In principle, I'm actually a strong supporter of international trade and environmental attributes, but this is a place where Canada can really take a lead. It's pretty straightforward. When we write a domestic set of regulations, if a project could be legally built in Canada and would receive credits if it was built in Canada, then the Canadian rule should issue Canadian credits to that same project if it's built offshore.

Environment committee  I want to turn that example into where we should be taking the Kyoto Protocol. If we were following the Montreal Protocol model and trying to reintroduce that to the Kyoto process, we would be sitting down with the United States, Europe, and Japan right now and asking them to bind to a common market aluminum product standard.

Environment committee  The credits are for reducing HFC-23 emissions that arise in the process of making a product called HCFC-22. HCFC-22 is an ozone-depleting substance that is scheduled to be out of production under the Montreal Protocol in the developed world by the end of 2010 and with a later phase-out.

Environment committee  I try to distinguish between what's happening within national boundaries and what I call a nation's or a people's greenhouse gas footprint. In 1990, if there are still only two countries in the world and they're energy self-sufficient and they have the same jobs and the same consumption patterns, they're the same.

Environment committee  You understand that I'm not saying this is enough, but the fact is that, however inadequate, the greenhouse gas caps that the Province of Alberta has implemented are more aggressive than the caps that any European nation has put in place in their CO2 allowance allocation procedure.

Environment committee  Yes, and I'm aware of, but not directly involved in, very detailed discussions that are going on between Environment Canada and industry.

Environment committee  No, that's a fact.

Environment committee  I think you might want to look at annual reports and recent announcements and count up....

Environment committee  I just want to throw in a little reality check. The WWF report was originally published some time ago. To accept the oil industry emission forecasts in that report, you have to assume that emissions from the Canadian petroleum sector will grow at a rate that is substantially faster than the rate at which production grows.

Environment committee  I would argue that the answer is yes. The impasse we're facing right now is that many of us who have spent a long time in the Kyoto process are married to the objectives and the structure. In Bali, are you going to give up the objectives or the structure, because we're at an impasse and something has to give?

Environment committee  First of all, thank you for inviting me to comment on the role that Canadian negotiators might play in the upcoming meeting in Bali. I want to state my support for Prime Minister Harper's position, at least as I understand it, that the world does not need another international protocol that binds only a minority of the world's emitters to absolute greenhouse gas emission caps.

Bill C-30 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  To get to your point, the credits are issued to the HCFC-22 manufacturers because they're combusting HFC-23, instead of discharging it to the atmosphere. So that's how the credit is derived, but that creates a subsidy for the manufacturer of HFC-22, which is the substance that is considered so damaging.

Bill C-30 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  I think in five years' time, people are going to wonder why we thought we would be negotiating international quota assignments at a UN table. That's like saying we're all going to go to a table and agree not to produce any more cars until we agree to an international quota allocation that our competitors agree to.