CCCE Welcomes National Round Table Report on Reducing Emissions of Greenhouse Gases

January 7, 2008

Today’s report from the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE) provides Canadians with a sound and comprehensive policy blueprint to achieve significant long-term reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, says Thomas d’Aquino, Chief Executive and President of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE).

“Canada’s business leaders are committed to effective action on climate change, and in that spirit we strongly welcome the NRTEE’s final Advisory Report on long-term reductions of greenhouse gases and air pollutants,” said Mr. d’Aquino, whose organization represents 150 chief executives and leading entrepreneurs from all major sectors and regions of the country.

He noted that the report’s main recommendations closely parallel those of the CCCE’s own Task Force on Environmental Leadership.  In October, the Task Force published a Policy Declaration putting forward five key propositions that would enable Canada to reduce GHG emissions and make the greatest possible contribution to a sustainable global economy.

At the top of the CEOs’ list was the need for a clear and consistent Canada-wide plan of action, one that sees all levels of government as well as industry and consumers working together toward shared goals. In the words of the CCCE Task Force, “All Canadians contribute to the creation of GHG emissions and nothing meaningful will happen unless we all accept our share of the responsibility.”  At the same time, the CEOs emphasized the need for a more effective and inclusive global plan of action on climate change that would ensure the participation of all major GHG-emitting countries.

Both of these key principles are reflected in today’s NRTEE report.  In addition, the NRTEE report mirrors the CCCE’s Policy Declaration in emphasizing the need for policies to spur the development and implementation of new, emissions-reducing technologies.  As the CEOs put it last October, “The key to a sustainable future is technology innovation.”  Indeed, today’s Round Table report says that while deep GHG emissions reductions are possible between now and 2050, “the scale and scope of the necessary technology deployment is significant and perhaps unprecedented in the modern industrial era.”

Finally, the NRTEE report echoes the CCCE’s Policy Declaration in recognizing the need for economy-wide price signals to persuade businesses and individuals to change their behaviour and reduce their emissions of GHGs and air pollutants.  One such approach would be to send price signals directly to the market via environmentally linked taxes.  The other would be a cap-and-trade system that would limit the total quantity of emissions and distribute the right to emit by creating a market in tradable permits.

Regardless of the specific mechanism, the goal of any such system must be to make maximum use of market forces, to ensure transparency, and to avoid giving any one sector or region an unfair advantage.  Of equal importance is the need to ensure that any new environmental tax is offset by reductions in other forms of taxation, to ensure revenue neutrality.

The NRTEE report makes it clear that any effort to achieve the federal government’s stated goal of deep, long-term GHG emissions reductions will impose significant economic costs on Canadians.  These would include sharply higher prices for electricity, home heating fuel and gasoline, as well as substantial spending on new, more efficient homes, cars and other energy-consuming goods.

According to the report, “with deep reductions there will be adverse impacts on regions, sectors and households.”  To minimize economic costs and dislocations, it is therefore vital that Canada act in concert with the rest of the world in setting targets for reduced emissions and implementing new emissions-pricing policies.

“The NRTEE has done all Canadians a valuable service in setting out the key principles that should guide our country’s efforts to address the climate change challenge,” Mr. d’Aquino said.  “As the CCCE Task Force said in our report in October, we will not build a successful national strategy by downplaying the likely costs and impacts.  The key is to make the right decisions about what investments in the short term will produce the greatest returns both now and over the long haul, for Canada’s economy and for the global environment.”

Founded in 1976, the CCCE is a not-for-profit, non-partisan organization committed to making Canada “the best place in the world in which to live, to work, to invest and to grow.”

In addition to Mr. d’Aquino, the members of the CCCE’s Executive Committee are:  Chair, Gordon M. Nixon, President and Chief Executive Officer, Royal Bank of Canada; Honorary Chair Richard L. George, President and Chief Executive Officer of Suncor Energy Inc.; and Vice Chairs Dominic D’Alessandro, Paul Desmarais, Jr., Jacques Lamarre, Hartley T. Richardson and Annette Verschuren, the chief executives respectively of Manulife Financial, Power Corporation of Canada, SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., James Richardson & Sons, Limited and The Home Depot Canada.