Environment committee  Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, and members of the committee. My name is Joanna Kyriazis, and I am a senior policy adviser for Clean Energy Canada, a climate and clean-energy think tank at Simon Fraser University. I am based here in Ottawa. I'd like to spend my time with the commit

Environment committee  Yes, absolutely. Carbon pricing does spur innovation and help to support our clean-tech sector. Another example is in Ontario. In 2017 there were 5,000 companies in Ontario's clean-tech sector, employing 130,000 people and generating about $20 billion in revenue each year. These

Environment committee  Carbon pricing systems have shown that they're successful in reducing emissions. Every emission or tonne of emissions reduced has a real impact, in terms of both avoided climate impacts and avoided health impacts from air pollution. The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Clim

Environment committee  If we reduce carbon dioxide concentrations in the air, then we will have less warming and reduce climate variation as a result of climate change.

Environment committee  I'm a lawyer by background and I'm pointing to the scientific experts.

Environment committee  I am pointing to the scientific experts who—

Environment committee  In order to provide you with the best scientific answer that I can, I'm going to point to the authoritative scientific voice on climate change and what causes global warming, which is human-induced heightened concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Add

Environment committee  Every tonne of CO2 reduction will make a difference. If we're asking whether Canada's overall emissions profile in the global context matters, we are the top emitter per capita in the G20. We are one of the world's top 10 economies. The best thing we can do, if we would like to g

Environment committee  Yes, I'm sorry.

Environment committee  The private sector often goes where the potential profits are. The behaviour of consumers is also driven by price signals. As I'm listening to some of the other witnesses, perhaps we can get consumers to change their behaviour based on more education and information about what ar

Environment committee  In the British Columbia example, there was a carbon tax in place since 2007. A 2015 study showed that emissions were reduced by 5% to 15%. It is true in the last few years that emissions have risen. However, B.C. has seen huge economic growth and population growth, so overall emi

Environment committee  First off, evidence from not just B.C. but other jurisdictions around the world—the U.K., California, Quebec—have all shown that carbon pricing works, both in terms of reducing emissions and supporting strong economic growth. We do not need to sacrifice economic growth and qualit

Environment committee  Carbon pricing is not the only solution, but we hear widely from economists that it's the most cost-effective solution. It will reduce emissions at the lowest cost to our economy.

Environment committee  Clean Energy Canada doesn't have a position as to which benchmark a particular industry should be subject to under the output-based pricing system. We believe that the output-based pricing system is a good policy mechanism to help address competitiveness issues and protect agains

Environment committee  [Inaudible—Editor]