Speaking Notes for

Mark Warawa
Parliamentary Secretary for the Minister of the Environment and MP for Langley

Air & Waste Management Association’s Annual Conference & Exhibition (ACE).


Calgary Telus Convention
June 22-25, 2010



Good morning!  Let me first bring you greetings from the Honourable Jim Prentice, Canada’s Minister of the Environment.

Your topic in this plenary session – “Transforming North America’s Energy Systems” - is a very timely one.  The challenge of ensuring that Canada capitalizes on its full potential as a clean energy superpower is a singular priority.

We took a big step forward yesterday. Minister Prentice announced a new policy that will apply a stringent performance standard to new coal-fired electricity generation units and those coal-fired units that have reached the end of their economic life.

Emissions from burning coal generate almost 19 per cent of Canada’s electricity, which accounts for 13 per cent of our overall greenhouse gas emissions. There is an opportunity to demonstrate leadership and take decisive action. And - after extensive consultation – that’s exactly what we’ve done.

I’ll outline the details of our policy in a moment, but first I’d like to give you a broader context for this latest piece of our environmental strategy.

In the period leading up to the G-8/G-20 summit, there’s been a lot of talk, once again, about climate change and the need to move forward with lower-carbon options for the energy we consume. But I often find that people talk about quite different things when they talk about climate change.

That’s because of the remarkable complexity of the issue. Climate change cuts across every sector of the economy; it affects every Canadian-rural or urban dweller-on pretty much every level of their daily lives. It is an issue that is at once local, regional, national, continental and global. It is, simultaneously, an issue of science, of business, of public policy and of politics.

To ensure that everyone is using the same points of reference and measurement in addressing climate change, the discussion has to be properly framed. And there has to be general agreement not only about the frame, but how to build it out.

That’s one reason why Canada was so pleased to have negotiated and formally associated ourselves with the Copenhagen Accord  -- an agreement that includes all major emitters and acknowledges climate change as a global issue requiring a global response.


Given the complexity to which I just alluded, even getting that formal acknowledgement of the issue is a considerable accomplishment.
This international process is an ongoing one, with the next climate change summit planned for Mexico in November. As it has from the outset, Canada continues to play a very active role in transforming the terms of the Copenhagen Accord into reality.
After Copenhagen, we aligned our GHG reduction targets on a continental basis - harmonizing with the United States our commitment to reduce our emissions by 17% by 2020, calculated from 2005. That makes sense given an integrated economy and a shared geographic space.
Having established a working international framework and a clear continental objective, we have now begun to regulate Canada’s emissions, source by source.
We began with the transportation sector because that is where 27 percent of our carbon emissions come from. So, to do that, we announced tough new continental tailpipe emission standards for passenger cars and light-duty trucks.

We announced the same approach last month for each of the 15 categories of heavy trucks—continental standards, developed in Canada and the United States—applied across the economy. And there’s still more to come. There’s working groups in place for ships, for trains and for planes.

We have proposed new regulations requiring biofuel content for gasoline and diesel fuel.

As a result, we expect that eventually gasoline will be required to contain five per cent renewable content. We could also have something similar for diesel and heating fuel. Along with co‑ordinated provincial regulations, that means that greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by about four megatonnes annually—the equivalent of taking a million vehicles off the road.

The Government is also working with the Province of Alberta and with the oil industry to ensure our current environmental regulations are rigorously enforced based on the best science available, and as well, considers additional policies to ensure the development of resources such as the oil sands are done in an environmentally sustainable manner.

As I’ve already stated, the Government is determined to maintain and build upon our credentials as a clean energy super power and to achieve that, our electricity system must be the cleanest in the world.

We already do a pretty good job of this. Seventy five percent of Canada’s electricity system emits no carbon whatsoever. Canadians take pride in the fact that we are one of the world’s most successful producers of hydroelectricity. Provinces such as Quebec and Manitoba and British Columbia are leaders in this area.

We aspire to do even better. And we will. The new policy on the use of coal is part of that push.

Most of Canada's coal burning electricity plants are both dated and dirty. The plants consist of 51 coal burning units, housed in 19 individual facilities. All but 18 of those units will reach the end of their forty-five year economic life by 2025.
 Hence the opportunity for Canada to make the right choices.

The companies which own those facilities are pressing for policy certainty so that they can make the requisite long term re-investment decisions.

Most of the plants in question are located in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Nova Scotia and we have been engaged in close work with these provinces over the past 18 months. 

There are also two large facilities in Ontario and the Ontario government has passed regulations requiring the closing of those facilities in 2014.

These circumstances present Canada with a unique opportunity to define regulatory policies that will move Canada to the cleanest electricity system of any G-8 or G-20 nation. In our view this approach, which some describe as a 'capital stock turnover' concept, is also smart economic policy.

Phasing out coal will allow us to achieve both health and environmental benefits and would also move Canada along the way to our -17% Copenhagen emission reduction commitment to the Copenhagen Accord.

We have repeatedly underscored the need to co-ordinate key environmental decisions and actions with our continental partners. This approach is grounded in the practicality that, in areas such as transportation, we drive the same cars and trucks. Moreover the heavy trucks, planes, trains and ships which we use are, for the most part, common across the border. The same can be said of the standards we would apply in the North American marketplace to things such as electronics and appliances.

But this is not always so, as Minister Prentice noted yesterday. Our countries are different and, in areas such as electricity, where Canadian circumstances and American circumstances are not the same, we will not hesitate to pursue a policy direction that reflects our differing circumstances. This is particularly true of in the case of our electricity system.

For those reasons, when it comes to the electricity generated by burning thermal coal, we are taking a different path, developing and enforcing distinct performance standards.

The approach we are taking creates strong incentives for the industry to invest in cleaner technologies, and reflects our discussions with the principal thermal provinces as well as industry. 

Going forward, all new coal-fired electricity units – as well as units reaching the end of their economic life– will have to meet a stringent performance standard. That standard will be based on parity with the emissions performance of high-efficiency natural gas generation, and will represent an improvement in emissions of about 60 per cent per gigawatt hour generated.

Our regulation will be very clear – when each coal burning unit reaches the end of its economic life, it will have to meet the standard or close down. Minister Prentice was quite clear yesterday when he said: “No trading. No offsets. No credits.”

In order to allow for adequate replacement generation to be brought on-stream, this proposed standard will take effect five years from this announcement..

In conclusion, we have a responsibility as a country to reduce our carbon emissions, and until such time as technology advances the burning of coal remains as our country's largest point source of emissions. As a nation we have the resource blessing which allow us to reduce those emissions. Our government intends to do exactly that.

We will not lose sight of the potential of cleaner coal technologies developing in the future. Our country is a leader in carbon capture and storage and we will maintain that focus. Proving this technology on a commercial scale is key to reducing Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions. In these regulations, new coal-fired plants that incorporate carbon capture and storage technology will be exempt from the standard until 2025.

At a time when we know that 40% of the carbon going into the atmosphere comes from burning coal. At a time when much of the world is rushing to build new, heavily emitting coal facilities, Canada will chose a cleaner pathway.

This policy, coupled with the commitments of the provinces, and companies who have committed to coal closures, will amount to emissions reductions of about 15 Megatonnes by 2020.This is equivalent to taking about 3.2 million vehicles off our road.

But while the environmental impact of these combined efforts may be dramatic, the effect on the economy will not be. Our capital stock is at the point where new facilities must be constructed anyway, and cost-effective technology is available to produce electricity with fewer emissions.

As Minister Prentice said yesterday, a responsible, clear, phase-out of the electricity sector’s inefficient coal-fired generation will allow ample time for the implementation of cleaner generation technologies. This will create new jobs in the clean-energy sector, while helping Canada meet its commitment to greenhouse gas reductions.


We recognize that in certain, strategic areas, we will have to strike out on our own. And this is just one of those - it’s a sector where we are focusing our attention, calibrating the needs of Canadian stakeholders with our specific environmental objectives. It is a process that requires careful consideration and consultation as well as courage and conviction.

We are not short on the expertise or the qualities to bring about meaningful change on a timely basis. But ultimately, it is not about us. We owe it to ourselves and to our children and grandchildren to make the right decisions for the future of Canada and for the environment.

Thank you.