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Results: 1 - 15 of 18
Steven Guilbeault
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Steven Guilbeault
2011-02-10 15:35
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to appear today to discuss such important issues as energy security and the oil sands.
In French, we are not engaged in the same discussion that you seem to be having with respect to the name of the oil sands. In French, the term is “sables bitumineux” and it's the same for everyone and everyone seems quite willing to accept it.
For us at Équiterre, issues such as energy security and the oil sands are both crucial for the energy, economic, environmental and social future of the country. We have prepared a report which suggests how Quebec could eliminate its dependency on oil by 2030. We sent you copies of that report, but only in French. We will be forwarding an English version which can then be distributed.
In light of the scientific data that we have received over the last decade with respect to climate change, and various reports, be they from NASA, Environment Canada or the Department of Natural Resources, or places around the planet, it is clear that in the coming decades, we will pretty well have to stop using fossil fuels.
It is clear that the starting point is fossil fuels, which have the highest rate of greenhouse gas emissions, in terms of either units of energy or units of GDP—whichever. As we were reminded again the day before yesterday, by a report tabled in the European Parliament by the European Commission, the oil sands have a GHE content which is 25 times higher than traditional oil fuels.
As we see it, that means one of two things: either we have to quickly reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with the oil sands—which, I remind you, emit two to four times more greenhouse gases than traditional fuels—or, if we are unable to do that, reduce our use, and therefore our production of oil from the oil sands.
In the report that we will be tabling with the committee, we show that we are well aware that humans will continue to use oil for quite some time to come. However, we believe that it is necessary, on the one hand, to reduce our dependency on oil, and also to move away from fossil fuels, conventional or otherwise, as quickly as possible, since they emit high levels of greenhouse gases. In that regard, the oil sands are clearly in a category by themselves.
In the report we will be forwarding to you, we have information from a study we conducted of the economic cost of this for a province like Quebec. And, what we did for Quebec can be done for other provinces. Indeed, it would be a good idea for the committee to look at that.
The economic cost of our dependency on oil is $74 a barrel of oil. The exodus of capital from a province like Quebec amounts to approximately $10 billion a year. If a barrel of oil costs $105, the loss of capital amounts to almost $15 billion. If a barrel costs $150—as was the case in 2007—the loss of capital outside Quebec is almost $20 billion. In budgetary terms, that corresponds to the second largest budget item for the Government of Quebec, which is the Ministry of Education.
Yet we believe there are many other things we can do with our money—public money—than use it to boost other world economies. We think we should be boosting our own economy instead.
You may say that it is impossible to reduce our dependency on oil—that it's unthinkable. And yet some countries have made a commitment not to import any more oil between now and 2025. Those countries, such as Sweden, are comparable to ours in terms of their climate, their economy, their social programs and education systems. But 2025 is coming quickly. If Sweden is able to do it, I don't see why a country like Canada could not do the same if, of course, it has the political will to do so.
I am one of those who believes that there is no lack of solutions, either technical or technological. We have enough creativity and intelligence to be able to deal with the issues.
In Sweden, they are now building houses that don't need a heating system. They still put heating systems in these houses, simply for psychological reasons, because the people who live there do not believe it is possible to live in Sweden in a house without heating. However, these houses are so energy efficient that the only heat that is produced is the heat loss from the people who live in them.
There are a great many things that we should be doing in Canada—for example, in terms of electrifying our transportation system, particularly transportation over long distances, both passenger transportation and shipping. That would allow us to greatly reduce our consumption of oil in this country.
You may ask whether we will gain something if the electricity used to power these transportation systems is produced using fossil fuels. But there will clearly be very significant gains if one considers the fact that the rate of efficiency of an electrical device in converting energy—in this case, moving electricity—is between 75% and 95%. In comparison, an internal combustion engine has an efficiency rate of between 20% and 25%. For every vehicle that is electrified, the energy efficiency would triple, which would represent a very significant gain.
There are many different things that should be done with respect to energy efficiency. Alas, Stephen Harper's government has abolished pretty well all the energy efficiency programs that were in place, particularly those aimed at low-income Canadians. Équiterre is an organization which, like many others across the country, has for years now provided energy efficiency services to low-income households, to help them reduce their energy bill.
However, the Harper government cut $500 million from energy efficiency programs for low-income households. Hundreds of jobs were lost across the country. In that sector, jobs were being created all across Canada, in small and large municipalities alike, from north to south, and from east to west. It was not only one part of the country which was benefiting from that.
We must focus on renewable energy. Wind energy is an obvious example. On behalf of the Quebec Minister of Natural Resources, I was in charge of a special team on renewable energy. The mandate of our team was to look at the development of emerging renewable energy sources, such as photovoltaic solar, thermal solar, biogas and second-generation biofuels.
In closing, there is huge potential for Quebec, Ontario and the country as a whole. Unfortunately, we are one of the only OECD countries to no longer have an incentive program for renewable energy development.
Thank you very much.
Steven Guilbeault
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Steven Guilbeault
2011-02-10 16:05
Are you wondering whether this is something that can be done more efficiently?
Steven Guilbeault
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Steven Guilbeault
2011-02-10 16:05
We are increasingly moving in the direction of reduced greenhouse gas emissions. According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Expert Panel on Climate Change—which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, as you may recall—all the large emitters of greenhouse gas emissions around the world, including China, India, Canada, the United States and Europe, will have to cap their greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and then reduce them.
Earlier, I was saying that, as regards the oil sands—which are responsible for a much larger number of greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels—there are two choices: either we quickly establish emission caps and impose significant reductions to at least bring them down to the level of conventional fuels, or we stop increasing production because we have no idea what to do at this point in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. They are one of the most significant sources of increased greenhouse gas emissions in Canada and have been since 1990. The sky is the limit. This cannot continue.
Steven Guilbeault
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Steven Guilbeault
2011-02-10 16:07
Certainly at the federal level. We are one of the only countries—and certainly one of the rare OECD countries—not to have a national public transit policy, unlike France, Great Britain and the Scandinavian countries. As for the transportation sector which, I should point out, produces approximately 25% of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions, we have no national vision there. In some provinces and municipalities—like Vancouver, which is doing fantastic work, and Montreal, which is doing fairly well—some interesting initiatives are underway. In Alberta, municipalities like Calgary and Edmonton have launched very innovative projects. However, there is no national strategy or vision in that area. We need to reform the federal tax system. Why? Because at the present time, the tax system provides a much greater incentive for investments in fossil fuels—traditional, conventional or non-conventional fuels, such as the oil sands—than in renewable energy.
As I said earlier at the end of my opening statement, we are one of the rare countries, if not the only OECD country, not to have a renewable energy incentive program. Canada was offering a wind energy credit that was only one third of what was available in the United States under George Bush. We're not talking about Barack Obama; we're talking about George W. Bush, that leading light of the socialist left wing.
Voices: Oh, oh!
Mr. Steven Guilbeault: At the time, it was one third of what was offered under George Bush, and now, we have nothing at all in Canada. If we took action in the public transit sector, by developing a strategy and providing the means to implement it, if we reviewed our tax system and incentives for the production of renewable energy, those would be three major components of a very attractive national policy.
Steven Guilbeault
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Steven Guilbeault
2011-02-10 16:13
You're right; it's a political question.
Équiterre is a non-partisan organization. We work at both the provincial and federal levels, and even at the international level. I am co-chair of the Climate Action Network International, which is a group of NGOs--
Mr. Roger Pomerleau: We have to get somewhere with this at some point.
Mr. Steven Guilbeault: -- that work together on climate change issues.
I'm one of those who believes that we could have an international strategy on energy and public transit which would mean that not just one industry or economic sector would benefit. Unfortunately, that is not the case now, but I happen to believe that things could be different.
Thank you.
Steven Guilbeault
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Steven Guilbeault
2011-02-10 16:17
As I said in my testimony, we understand that oil has been around for a while and will continue to be. That being said, we know that internationally things are changing, and rapidly. We've seen very rapid increases in the price of oil over the last decade, something no one predicted, or very few predicted, only 10 years ago.
What is good for part of the country may not be good for the entire country. One of the things we have been looking at, as have others in Quebec and around Canada, is the Dutch syndrome. It's not well documented yet in Canada. It is in certain countries. We think this committee should be paying close attention to that. It doesn't mean we have to close down parts of the country to the benefit of the others.
Basically, right now, in terms of greenhouse gas legislation or incentives, the only game in town is the tar sands carbon capture and storage, which no one believes will be able to help us reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the foreseeable future. We have existing technologies, proven technologies, that could help us meet the emissions reduction requirements that we have internationally, which various provinces have taken with current and existing technologies.
Steven Guilbeault
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Steven Guilbeault
2011-02-10 16:20
Thank you for the question. It should probably be pointed out--I guess everybody knows that around this table--that the committee that produced that report was hand-picked by the government to do the study.
I find it unbelievable that in a country like Canada we would have a report like that being produced. This is something you would expect from a poor, developing nation, and yet we're in Canada, one of the richest nations in the world. We have all the technologies, all the know-how to do these things, and yet we don't even know what's happening. We're destroying the information or the capability to have the information that would help us understand what is happening while expanding new production.
I don't know what to say. It baffles my mind that in a country like Canada we would allow things like that to happen.
Steven Guilbeault
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Steven Guilbeault
2011-02-10 16:22
Well, we should definitely look at the last few reports of the Auditor General. They showed us how ignorant we are about water and how the federal government has not been doing its homework. While we don't know what's happening, we're allowing all kinds of projects that stand to have dramatic impact on our water resources. We talked about tar sands. We could be talking about shale gas development. I don't understand how we can do this. Obviously, oil and gas are important for the economic development of this country, but without water there's no life. It's as simple as that.
Steven Guilbeault
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Steven Guilbeault
2011-02-10 16:31
That is basically part of the document we will be tabling. It's a study we carried out in cooperation with the Quebec Ministry of Natural Resources and the Department of Finance.
Because Quebec does not have an oil industry, with the exception of two and a half refineries—one of which will soon be shutting down—very little money spent on oil-related issues in Quebec actually remains in Quebec. So, that money is crossing provincial borders. It's used to buy oil from the North Sea, Angola, Venezuela--
Steven Guilbeault
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Steven Guilbeault
2011-02-10 16:31
Yes, that's right.
Steven Guilbeault
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Steven Guilbeault
2011-02-10 16:31
No, not at all.
Steven Guilbeault
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Steven Guilbeault
2011-02-10 16:32
Or to buy electricity from Hydro-Quebec, rather than buying oil, which is increasingly sourced from countries like Algeria or Angola. That is the strategy we're pursuing.
Steven Guilbeault
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Steven Guilbeault
2011-02-10 16:32
I was referring to the fact that we have no incentives in place for the production of renewable energy and that this has been noted in several studies, particularly the OECD study. We are one of the rare industrialized countries, if not the only one, not to have a strategy and funding in place to encourage the production of renewable energy. We used to have a fund—the ecoENERGY Fund—which gave about 1¢ per kilowatt-hour to producers of renewable energy. However, the Harper government decided not to renew the funding for that program. Technically, the fund still exists, but there is no more money available. The infrastructure of the fund is still there. There are still a few public servants attached to it, but there is no longer any money to invest in renewable energy and other forms of energy.
Steven Guilbeault
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Steven Guilbeault
2011-02-10 16:33
If we are not the only one, we are certainly one of the only countries not to have one. From memory, I would say we are the only one. I could forward to you the documentation on that. Several OECD studies have been done on this, but I can tell you that the United States has one, the European Union obviously has one, as do Japan and Australia. To my knowledge, all the industrialized countries have policies and incentives in place. We have none. There are some for first-generation biofuels—basically corn ethanol—but not for renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and geothermal energy.
Équiterre is currently building an environmental construction project in Montreal—a platinum LEED project—that will be one of the most efficient in North America in terms of energy consumption per square foot. We received no federal money for this project, even though the federal government funded a similar project in Toronto. I personally worked on a green housing cooperative project—social housing, in other words—aimed particularly at low-income households. We did receive money from Quebec, the Quebec Housing Corporation and the City of Montreal, but we received no federal government grant.
Steven Guilbeault
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Steven Guilbeault
2010-04-27 10:16
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to thank the committee for inviting me here this morning. I apologize for being late; there was a traffic jam at security.
My name is Steven Guilbeault. I am the Deputy Executive Coordinator of Équiterre. I am also co-chair of the international Climate Action Network, an organization of over 500 non-governmental organizations that works with the United Nations on climate change. In addition, on behalf of the Minister of Natural Resources and Wildlife of Quebec, Nathalie Normandeau, I chair a special team on emerging renewable energy sources—but I am not here today in that capacity. The issue you are interested in has interested me, personally and professionally, for several years, but particularly in recent months, in relation to that office.
I would like to echo what Mr. Weis said earlier. First, I would like to start a little farther back to get a little closer to where we are. When we examine the global situation, we have seen, since the early 1990s, that the forms of energy production with the highest growth rates, whether in terms of jobs or investment, are renewable energy sources—wind energy, solar energy.
In February 2009, the HSBC Bank produced a report that you have certainly heard about. The report studied the G20 countries' economic recovery plans. The report noted that on average, in the industrialized countries, investments in green energy accounted for about 15% within the economic recovery plans. However, what we find behind that fact is that the countries that are investing the most, in absolute or relative amounts, are not the industrialized countries at present, but the emerging nations like China and South Korea.
South Korea is going to invest 82% of its economic recovery plan in the green economy—renewable energy, energy efficiency, sustainable transportation and clean technology. China is investing 36%. In absolute terms, China is making the largest investment in clean technology ever seen in history. This is even more than what is being done in the United States or even Europe—it will be 55% in Europe.
Where does Canada stand? We are at half the average for the industrialized countries. According to the HSBC report, Canada is not the worst country: it ranks fourth among the least bad countries in terms of investment in renewable energy. That was before the last federal budget, in which the money for the ecoENERGY program was not renewed. As a result, I imagine that if HSBC did its study over, Canada would lose more ground in the technological innovation race taking place before our eyes. Deutsche Bank has released a very similar report about three weeks ago.
What is the conclusion reached by these major research groups, these investment banks, and the International Energy Agency? Essentially, it is that the economy of the 21st century will be a clean and sustainable economy or it will not be. Massive investments are being made everywhere—I referred to South Korea earlier. Between 2009 and 2011, 150,000 jobs will be created in the clean technology sector. That is somewhat as if South Korea had taken virtually all program spending in Mr. Flaherty's last budget and invested it all in renewable energy, clean technology and energy efficiency.
What is happening is that Canada is rapidly losing ground... In fact, it is an ecological disaster, of course, because sources of energy production in Canada as a whole are still largely based on fossil fuels. As Tim said, if we want to meet our objective of having 90% of our electricity production sources in non-greenhouse gas emitting forms by 2020, it is possible to do it, but we have to adopt the measures for doing it fast. Tim gave the example of Denmark, but there are several examples of countries that have done it that are worth looking at.
That is exactly what we have done in the work done by the committee I chair for the government of Quebec. We observed what was going on at the global level, what examples were the most worth considering, and we asked how it could be adapted to the situation in Quebec. I don't see why we would not do the same thing at the national level. We have to look at what business opportunities there are in terms of technological development, job creation and adopting these technologies, in particular in industry, [inaudible]. When we talk about clean energy, obviously there are water and geothermal technologies. There are a lot that tackle reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, that is where a majority of investments are seen. What is astonishing is to see how completely absent Canada is from this at present. We are missing the boat.
We could always say that this is not the role of the federal government, but when we look at examples—Tim talked about Denmark—like Germany, we see that it worked with its regions to create a major, massive, gigantic program to develop renewable energy, and did it in the space of 10 years. In the worst cases, over the last 10 years in Germany, regardless of the type of technology—whether biofuel, wind or photovoltaics—the Germans have doubled their production capacity from 10 years ago. In the best cases, they have increased production of these forms of energy by 300 or 400 or sometimes even 500%.
I was talking about China a moment ago. Two years ago, at a United Nations meeting, I had an opportunity to meet with the richest industrialist in China. He told us that when he finished university, he and his friends decided to start up a company manufacturing solar panels. Since the company was created, it has had an annual growth rate of 100%. Today, Suntech is the largest manufacturer of solar panels in the world. I built a small ecofriendly house that operates partly on solar energy. Part of the solar panels was in fact manufactured in China. You see them now in some of our hardware stores. You go to Canadian Tire or Rona and you will see solar panels often made in China. So we could be in this race. There is even a solar panel on the room of my house made by a little company you may have heard of, called Shell.
The energy industry is changing very rapidly. In the world as we know it, the economy and energy are becoming increasingly closely related. Unfortunately, Canada is not at the table. The federal government can play a very important role in supporting provincial initiatives, as other governments are doing. The British, for example, with interest-free loans to install solar systems on the roofs of houses. The system will stay with the house because obviously people are not going to leave with it.
Wallonia, which has about 25% less solar potential than all of Canada, has new regulations made in 2006 where all new residential construction has to be equipped with solar systems, whether for heating water or air or for producing electricity.
So there is a very important role that the federal government can play and is not playing at present. Obviously, this has disastrous consequences for our greenhouse gas emissions, for Canadians' quality of life, for the quality of our environment. But on top of all that, it will have disastrous consequences for Canada's competitive advantage over the next few years.
Thank you.
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