Thanks, Jacquie, and my thanks to the chair and the committee members for inviting me here today. I'll just build on Jacquie's remarks on the national inventory report, which looks at the historical emissions, and some of our UNFCCC requirements for reporting on projections.
A major UNFCCC report, the national communication on climate change, is due every four years. We just published one in December 2017. In the interim, there are also biennial reports, which are abridged versions of the national communication on climate change, and they are submitted every two years.
The UNFCCC has developed reporting guidelines and a rigorous review process for these reports, and according to the guidelines, these reports also include a chapter on GHG projections among other reporting elements.
The department has committed to publishing updated projections annually, and we've been doing that since 2011, so in between the biennial reports the department publishes a standalone report that focuses on the GHG projections. In order to develop these projections, we rely heavily on the historical energy data from Statistics Canada, as well as oil and gas price and production projections from the energy futures report prepared annually by the National Energy Board.
One of the most important data sources coming from Statistics Canada is the “Report on Energy Supply and Demand in Canada”. It's the cornerstone for the development of our projections and contains information on historical energy use by sector and province. We also use a number of supplementary data sources in the preparation of our projections, including electricity capacity generation and oil and gas production.
In addition to developing projections for greenhouse gas emissions, we also prepare projections for air pollutants based on the same energy dataset. These projections are used to assess progress towards Canada's climate change targets, through the international reporting, as well as to inform internal analysis during the policy development stage and provide the foundation for the cost-benefit analysis that is done for regulatory impact analysis statements for proposed regulations the department is setting forward.
Our publications on projections are used widely by the public, non-government organizations, and academics in their analysis and research.
I'll just close by saying that in the preparation of our projections we consult quite closely with provinces, territories, and other third parties to make sure there's sort of a built-in peer review process.
I'll thank you again and I'll turn it over to Greg.