Carbon market and carbon tax: status and needs?To make sure the speaker's comments during the round table are not altered, the transcription was made without translation and respecting the language of each speaker.
|
Marché du carbone et taxe du carbone: situation et besoins ?
Dans le souci de ne pas altérer les propos des intervenants lors de la table ronde, la transcription ci-dessous a été faite sans traduction et en respectant la langue de chaque locuteur.
|
Marion Tétégan Simon
Wilfred Roussel Alan Hanson Randy Milton Kevin Arsenault Robert Capozi |
Modératrice de la table ronde. Directrice scientifique du volet « Tourbières et sols » de l’IRZC
Député de Shippagan-Lamèque-Miscou et Membre du comité spécial sur les changements climatiques du Nouveau-Brunswick Environnement et Changements Climatiques Canada - Milieux aquatiques et Aires protégées Ministère des Ressources naturelles, Nouvelle-Écosse Ministère communautés, Terres et Environnement - l’Ile-du-Prince-Edward Spécialiste en adaptation, Environnement et Gouvernements locaux, Nouveau-Brunswick |
Bonjour à tous. Merci aux panelistes d’avoir accepté d’être à cette table ronde. (Marion présente chaque membre du panel). M. Roussel, pourriez-vous nous éclairer sur vos activités en lien avec la thématique de la table ronde et les sujets rattachés aux changements climatiques ?
Ayant été Maire de Le Goulet en 2012, j’ai développé un intérêt pour les changements climatiques lors des projets de restauration des dunes de sable. À titre de député de Shippagan-Lamèque-Miscou, je participe à titre de membre au Comité spécial sur les changements climatiques. Un premier rapport sur les changements climatiques avec plus de 100 recommandations a été déposé à l’Assemblée législative du Nouveau-Brunswick à la fin 2016. L’instauration d’une taxe sur le carbone a été décidée par le gouvernement fédéral en 2016. Chaque province avait le choix de se faire imposer un système ou d’en développer un selon leurs propres cibles. Au Nouveau-Brunswick, il a été décidé que la province instaure son propre système de tarification du carbone. Depuis, des consultations provinciales ont eu lieu, un rapport sur les changements climatiques a été produit en plus de la mise en place d'un comité du cabinet sur les changements climatiques. Avec le comité du cabinet, on s’assure d’avoir des résultats concernant l'impact des changements climatiques. Leur rôle est d’étudier divers modèles pour déterminer la meilleure méthode possible à appliquer au Nouveau-Brunswick sur la tarification du carbone. L’objectif souhaité du système de tarification qui sera choisi pour le Nouveau-Brunswick est le respect des économies régionales et des cibles canadiennes en matière de réduction des émissions de gaz à effet de serre. Le travail se poursuit actuellement. À noter que le revenu engendré par cette taxe du carbone n’ira pas dans les coffres des gouvernements fédéraux ou provinciaux. Elles serviront plutôt comme fonds pour la lutte contre les changements climatiques et l’adaptation. Est-ce qu’il existe au palier fédéral et dans les autres provinces atlantiques une instance similaire à celle que M. Roussel a décrite? As discussed with my colleagues in Ottawa, at a national level, the territories government is working closely on all aspects of climate change. All the first ministers came together twice this last year to address climate change. First there was the Vancouver declaration in March 2016 which led to the Pan Canadian framework on Clean Growth Climate Change in December 2016. Also, all ministers of the environment worked together through the Canadian council of the ministers of the environment which has a specific climate change committee. The federal government is currently consulting on the Pan Canadian framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change. Similar to the Canadian Council for Minister of Environment, there are others federal and territorial ministerial table for climate change research and adaptation. We have tables on energy, forestry, agriculture and transportation witch deal with the issues of climate change. There’s also a number of federal and territorial working group that are also dealing with the climate change adaptation. For example, there is a coastal management working group. At a national level, there are 4 reports that are being used to deal with climate change. As a government, we now have the title for the department of Environment and Climate Change Canada. This signals a real commitment by the government to address climate change. Nova Scotia is committed to establishing an Act and Trade program applying the Pan Canadian framework on carbon pricing. The current process in store recognizes steps that have already been made to address climate change problems. We had established our environmental goals into our Prosperity Act witch legislated reduction of 10% from the co2 emission from 1990. Today, we already achieved that goal with a total of 17% reduction and also, the 2030 goal of 30% below 2005 gas emission level. The government is still committed to climate change and carbon reduction. We’ve put a lot of effort on the electricity market, causing a reduction on our coal consumption from 8% to just over 15%. The proposed Act and Trade program will include industrial facilities in order to meet our goal of an annual green gas emission equal to “a certain number” of co2 equivalent. Within the proposal, we also aim to control the product supply and natural gas distribution. One of the key point in the Nova-Scotia Act and Trade program is meant to be internal to the province, limiting trade with in the province from other provinces. As of now, the province is in the process of public consultation on how it is best to distribute their allowances through different company for carbon credit. There are a number of sectors that are not included in the Act and Trade, like forestry and agriculture, concerning “offsets”. Those that shall not be concerned by that program will be able to buy or sell offset credits to the ones that have exceeded theirs limits. Finally, the province will monitor the function of the Act and Trade program and its’ delivery result just as needed. PEI is still looking at all its’ options, and have yet to choose regarding climate change. The main focus of PEI right now is coastal vulnerability, specifically coastal erosion and coastal flooding. Coastal hazard mapping has been done and it has defined particular areas of vulnerability concerning erosion, flooding and risk assessment. Based on the above mapping, we could identify infrastructure, properties, etc., that are at higher risk and determine possible adaptation at these sites. We also use that map to guide landscaping and future development in those at-risk areas. Plus spécifiquement, par rapport au marché du carbone au Nouveau-Brunswick, est-ce que M. Capozi vous pouvez nous en dire davantage? Le facteur du développement des ressources naturelles en est un très important dans le cadre des émissions de gaz à effet de serre. Il va falloir trouver un système qui met davantage nos industries pour qu’ils puissent être compétitif sur le marché global. Si l'on va pour une tarification basée sur un quota d’émission qui pourrait être acheté ou vendu sur le marché international. Présentement, le gouvernement du Nouveau-Brunswick base nos options sur ceux qui avantagent le développement de nos ressources. Aussi, il faut que la solution soit très bien balancée entre le public et les industries. Tout cela sera développé pour respecter la date de délivrance du fédéral, soit en 2018. Est-ce que M. Roussel ou M. Hanson veulent rajouter autres détails ou précision? On May 18, the federal government presented their carbon pricing options for provinces who chose not to have their own carbon pricing program by 2018. En ce qui a trait aux dates, on peut ajouter que le régime de tarification sur le carbone sera en vigueur le 1er janvier 2019. Les redevances sur le carbone vont être en vigueur en 2018. La tarification sur le rendement donnera lieu à une redevance sur le carbone qui sera applicable pleinement aux combustibles pour l’ensemble des installations industrielles. (Audience question) If carbon taxes are going to be collected, where are they going to go after? And for which kind of funding: adaptation, restoration, research...? Within the Pan Canadian framework, money collected in a certain jurisdiction will remain in that jurisdiction. The specific use of that tax money (ex: restauration, adaptation, research, etc.) will be defined by each province and/or jurisdiction as long as it is related to climate change. In the government of Nova-Scotia, there will be a mechanism to determine the allowances that are going to be given and also how we are going to meet our gas emission target. After that, it’s up to those industries to either meet those requirements or deal with other industries to trade those allowances available to them. As it goes further along and we reach our carbon target, the allowances will begin to decrease from that market. Part of the reason that we are interested in cutting back on carbon is its impact on biodiversity. To me, biodiversity seems to be the elephant in the room. Some provinces are getting sufficient amount of electricity that is “green” yet their impact on biodiversity is quite substantial. Could there be taxes on local impact on biodiversity since the common tax is partially attached to abusing biodiversity as a whole? It seems that we could be going down a very slippery road. If everything is based on carbon and if your green impact, as far as carbon is concern, is low on emission but hard on biodiversity, your impact isn’t considered into the equation. Forest land for example, in certain provinces is calculated in terms of biodiversity. Getting carbon credit for that, doesn’t seem reasonable. Taxation may not be the answer for all society’s challenges and within the overall environmental assessment process we will take in the consideration the impact on biodiversity or any proposed green energy project. About the surtaxes on fossil fuel energy, in New-Brunswick the definition of fossil fuel includes peat. Will the peat industries be subject to a surtax on the peat use for horticulture reason? There are two words here, fossil and fuel. We can argue whether peat is or is not a fossil, but the second word is fuel, which peat is not used for anymore. If you are using peat for horticulture application, I don’t think you could consider it as fuel. It would be the same looking at it from Nova-Scotia. At this point in time, peat wouldn’t be considering as fuel. The province gave up on the idea of peat as fuel back in 1983 after the provincial peatland inventory. As for PEI, I assume it would be the same as Nova-Scotia when it comes to peat as fossil fuel. Au Nouveau-Brunswick, même si l'on considère la tourbe comme étant un produit énergétique, il n’y a rien de décidé sur la tarification en ce jour. Le Nouveau-Brunswick n’est pas rendu à cette étape-là. Could it be possible to challenge the energy industries to be green? Looking at Hydro Québec, they are condemning the Rupert on the east coast of James Bay. They are destroying all the fish run in the name of being “green”, which leads to loss of fisheries in indigenous land for a so call “green fuel”. Also, another point, Nova-Scotia has built a nice windfarm. But they built it on a place where there could have been a restored saltmarsh. When we look at those different “green energy solutions” we need to look at the bigger picture to include biodiversity and carbon storage. I can agree on a number of those areas, exception to the last one. As you realise where the windfarm is located, is actually on a main national highway or adjacent to it. There is no way that dyke system could be removed. It would end up flooding the highway, a major link between New-Brunswick and Nova-Scotia. This is part of a social-economic trade off that occurs. In this case the trade off was that the windfarm was going in there. The loss was the potential restoration. The government of Canada established an expert panel to review the environmental assessment. That panel had consultation across the country and proposed some very scientific and appropriate mechanisms to do the environmental assessment “Canada Moving Forward”. Are you aware that the concerned industries in Nova-Scotia are part of a market that is just too small for the carbon taxes? Or if they are actually successful, they won’t be able to trade some the gains of carbon credit. The government of Nova-Scotia put out a document containing such questions. In this document, questions about the impact on the public and local market is discussed. The whole question of trade within a border or with the international market could be brought up. The current one is trying to say that any benefit, for starting off, would occur within the province. So, if there is going to be a cost to the province or the industry within the province to reduce the greenhouse gas emission, the allowance that the industries are going to be provided with are supposed to be free of charge by the province. If all the companies are successful enough, they will all have the same asset to trade and no one to trade it to. I think that would be great, especially if we meet our target of 1990 level to below 89% by 2050. Concernant la taxe au Nouveau-Brunswick, est-ce qu’il y a un système de plafonnement qui existe ? Aussi, sur les droits d’échange de crédit de carbone, s’il y a un surplus de production de carbone, éventuellement, est-ce que cette entreprise pourra échanger son crédit de carbone avec d’autres entreprises qui n'ont pas surproduit ? À ce moment-ci, on n’est pas en mesure de confirmer la direction que va prendre la province. C’est à discuter au comité du cabinet. One of the key issues in carbon taxation is keeping track of each industry. Who is going to verify that in the Atlantic? We are still early in our process, while 2018 is quickly approaching. That issue should be addressed by the end of this year. From a federal perspective, similar to the National Inventory Program, information from the province will be brought up to a national scale before reporting it nationally. Concernant les changements climatiques, est-ce que vous pouvez partager avec nous votre engouement sur les sujets qui méritent d’être approfondis ? Sur une perspective régionale, dans la péninsule acadienne nous sommes à l’avant-poste concernant le sujet des changements climatiques, l’érosion côtière et les ondes de tempêtes. En ce moment, lors d’une tempête du siècle, on serait sous deux mètres d’eau. Il va falloir penser en fonction de l'adaptation. En 2014, une entente a été signée entre l’IRZC et le forum des Maires pour mettre sur pied un plan sur les changements climatiques. On parle d’un plan d’aménagement du territoire. Il reste beaucoup de recherche à faire à ce niveau-là. Il faut être conscient que nous vivons dans un très vaste territoire. Il faut développer une expertise ici. Tout cela se fait malheureusement en fonction de notre capacité à payer. À ce moment-là, on opte souvent à déménager plutôt que de rester sur notre bord de mer. Dans certains cas, l’option est de se protéger avec des infrastructures. L’aménagement d’un plan d’adaptation devra prendre en compte notre capacité à payer ainsi que notre résilience. À date, on a défini clairement ce qui nous attend, mais on n’a pas encore défini ce que l’on va faire. Il faut passer de la rédaction à l’action. With regards to adaptation programs by the government of Canada, there’s a number of programs who are looking into how we should adapt to climate change. The first is a program design to increase the understanding of the climate change to the public and how Canadians should undertake it. It’s established a hundred thirty million dollars over 5 years to go to 7 adaptation programs related to science, health, northern indigenous communities as well as key economic sectors. That money can be used for various public information and education programs. The other fund is the disaster mitigation and adaptation funds that establish a two million dollars to cover natural disasters, extreme weather event and climate resilience. The coastal management working group, is working on the use of natural wetlands for carbon sequestration, building resilience to sea level rise. The federal will work with provinces and territories to protect and enhance wetland, agricultural lands and forest. The importance of adaptation to sea level rise is something recurring. Increasing our understanding on how we should be flood proofing our communities is important. Nova Scotia does have many programs in place dealing with climate change adaptation, trying to reduce our dependency on coal. Also, we are changing the way we are constructing our buildings and developing new energy efficient houses. We also have an interest in sea level rise as some of our communities will be affected by it. A coastal act will shortly be in place by the new government. A lot of our work on the national highway system is under environmental assessment impact. The department of transportation and infrastructure is very dedicated and supportive of doing restoration, especially in salt marsh. There is a big amount of money dedicated to education as well. Education is a big part of what needs to be done. There is still a lot of concern and issues regarding housing close to wetlands. We have to find ways to discourage that. And if we educate them, it’s easier for the government to come up with policies to which the population will be more accepting of. Sur le plan d’action sur les changements climatiques du Nouveau-Brunswick est présentée une liste de mesure qui touche à plusieurs secteurs de nos industries et communautés. Dans cette ligne d’approche, on a des études de vulnérabilité pour les communautés isolées et pour les communautés côtières. En premier temps, il faut s’assurer d’avoir les outils pour que les communautés puissent faire des études de vulnérabilité. Il est important, dans ce cadre, de mettre à disposition le fond en fiducie de l’environnement pour eux. Dans la charte adaptation aux changements climatiques, l’on vise la proportion des écosystèmes naturels qui protègent les communautés côtières. Ces actifs naturels doivent être protégés/restaurés. Un autre grand objectif du plan est de développer des stratégies de communication pour “entraîner” les gens sur la cause du changement climatique et le lien entre les activités humaines et les impacts sur le climat. En gros, on peut faire un changement si l'on s’engage au niveau individuel. Personnellement, l’enjeu des changements climatique devrait être imposé dans nos mentalités comme dans le cas du recyclage. Something that wasn’t mentioned is invasive species. With climate change, we have been seeing a growth of invasive species. Previously there was a national initiative, the New-Brunswick Invasive Species Council and there was one in N.-S. and something in PEI too. A lot of them have gone to disrepair. Will invasive species be included in your climate change adaptation initiative? I would like to be optimistic with a reviewed program adapted to climate change. There will be an increase of the funding related to invasive species in Canada. Over the last 10-15 years we haven’t seen an improvement in Canada. En tant qu'opérateur de l'exploitation de la tourbe, dans les présentations on parle beaucoup d’éviter, de compenser et de minimiser. Est-ce que c’est devenu le mode de penser standard des employés du gouvernemental ? Our mitigation act has avoided minimizing as a compensation… We realize that certain activities that build require impact on wetlands. Over the last couple of years, in terms of education, we focus on the provision of water related habitat. Also, you can see with the national wetland conservation fund, the focus is the full spectrum of ecological services that wetlands provide. We are much more concerned around the issues around the conservation restoration of wetland, no longer as duck habitat, but a very integral part of our functioning ecosystem. A change of view probably has occurred in the province of Nova-Scotia. There is desire on the part of Senior Management and the government itself to utilize crown land to try to maximize/ get some added benefit from that land in a sustainable way. In PEI we are developing a water act. The value of wetlands is going to be more important than ever. It’s going to get more and more protected. Plusieurs items dans notre plan d’action visent nos ressources naturelles. L’une des mesures est d’intégrer les nouvelles connaissances sur les changements climatiques sur les terres de la couronne. Il est nécessaire d’accompagner les industries ou les producteurs de tourbes dans l’intégration de ces nouvelles connaissances. Encore une fois, merci à tous pour votre participation ! |