Environment committee  I think this is the most exciting part of this bill, arguably, not least because it actually captures the impacts on our real lives and economies, and so on and so forth. Frankly—referring with all due respect to Professor Pardy's points—we get perverse outcomes sometimes when each bank is making its own decisions about risk, because they are looking at the risk to the bank.

Environment committee  That's a great question. Again, it's essential. You should all be interested in this as parliamentarians, because people are losing trust in our public institutions. They can't trust the information they get, yet that's the basis on which they make their decisions. This is an increasing concern for the public.

Environment committee  I'm afraid I switched the interpretation on partway because of a term I didn't understand in French, so I hope I have the right question. I think what the public is saying is that they want something that the evidence actually lines up with. I've reviewed 118 years' worth of studies looking at the cost of divestment to investment portfolios and found basically no effect.

Environment committee  That is an extremely important question. Yes, we see systematic under-reporting when we have voluntary disclosure. In fact, academics I know even looked at disclosures from the CDP, the carbon disclosure project —they are some of the best ones we have—and found that there were basic addition errors and so on.

Environment committee  It's not a belief; it's an established scientific fact.

Environment committee  That was exactly my thought when I heard about China. Our per capita emissions are significantly higher than China's, and that is a source of reputational harm to Canada as a country that is otherwise respected.

Environment committee  It's in expansion mode when all of the other wealthy countries are expanding to nowhere near the same degree as we are. The main source of growing emissions for us comes from expanding oil and gas. Even though many other countries are, of course, still extracting, the growth is nowhere near the levels we're experiencing.

Environment committee  No. Clearly, Canada is very good at that, but I will just point out that the methane emissions associated with natural gas need to be incorporated into our analyses. They can be worse than coal, depending on the level of leakage of methane, which is an extremely potent greenhouse gas.

Environment committee  The floor audio is muted.

Environment committee  Thank you. Hello. My name is Ellen Quigley and I am a research professor and special adviser to the chief financial officer at the University of Cambridge. However, I speak in a private capacity as an academic today. It is after 10 p.m. my time, but it is well worth working late to have a chance to speak with you.