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Canada Ignores Logging in Green House Gas Update
18/04/23
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Apr. 10, 2023
Will Canada address the logging gap in its greenhouse gas update?
GHG emissions associated with logging and wood use were approximately 75 megatonnes in 2020, matching emissions from all of Canada’s oil sands operations and making logging one of the highest emitting sectors of Canada’s economy.
This week, the Government of Canada will release its annual greenhouse gas emissions data update.
Canada’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are expected to rise again. That’s a significant concern, given the urgent need to dramatically reduce global GHG emissions in order to limit global heating and prevent even more catastrophic flooding, fires, and heat waves.
To meet its commitment to cut emissions by 40 to 45 per cent by 2030, Canada needs to implement effective policies to reduce emissions from all sectors of its economy.
However, at present, Canada is failing to transparently report and tackle emissions from one of its largest economic sectors: industrial logging.
Instead of separately reporting the emissions from industrial logging, Canada reports “combined net flux from Forest Land and Harvested Wood Products – from forest harvest,” a catch-all category that includes emissions from logging and carbon sequestration in areas that have never been logged.
The result is a forest sector that appears roughly carbon neutral on paper, but only because the industry is being credited with the carbon removal work of forests it has never touched.
Since the government doesn’t transparently report logging emissions, Nature Canada and the Natural Resources Defense Council asked a respected climate researcher, Matthew Bramley, to calculate net emissions from the sector.
Using data provided by Environment and Climate Change Canada, Bramley identified the emissions and sequestrations that are reasonably attributable to the logging sector: namely, carbon taken out of the forest through logging and emitted from harvested wood products, minus the carbon stored in long-lived wood products and carbon sequestered by trees regrowing after logging.
The result was shocking: GHG emissions associated with logging and wood use were approximately 75 megatonnes in 2020, matching emissions from all of Canada’s oil sands operations, and making logging one of the highest emitting sectors of Canada’s economy.
Canada’s failure to report logging emissions is a serious problem for three reasons.
First, it exempts one sector of the Canadian economy from addressing its emissions, adding to the burden on other sectors and saddling Canada’s progress toward its 2030 climate goal with a 75-Mt CO2 asterisk.
Second, it leads to counterproductive policy decisions that fail to consider the actual climate cost of clear-cut logging and the full value of protecting carbon-rich primary forests.
Finally, it results in a failure to incentivize sustainable logging practices, which in turn threatens Canada’s standing in global markets. (The EU recently passed a law banning the trade of products linked to deforestation and forest degradation, which, given the extent of clear-cutting of primary forests in Canada, could threaten Canada’s access to that market.)
Calls are growing for Canada to more transparently and accurately report the climate impacts of logging.
Last year, 90 scientists wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, urging him to fix Canada’s forest carbon accounting loopholes. And in November, 70 health and environment groups urged Ministers Steven Guilbeault and Jonathan Wilkinson to take action to more transparently report logging emissions in upcoming climate reports.
The release of Canada’s GHG Inventory later this week presents a key opportunity for the federal government to fix this gap in its climate strategy, and provide the data needed to implement effective policies to reduce emissions. Doing so is not just good for the environment. It will protect jobs in a marketplace that is increasingly demanding wood products that align with a safe, sustainable future.
With just a few years left to avoid exceeding devastating climate thresholds, Canada urgently needs to start transparently reporting the true GHG emissions associated with logging and to encourage the transition to truly sustainable logging practices that protect the health of Canada’s irreplaceable forests.
Michael Polanyi is policy and campaigns manager for nature-based climate solutions at Nature Canada.
[Top photo: "Big Lonely Doug," a Coast Douglas fir, stands on its own in a cut block in the Gordon River Valley 18 km north of Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island, Canada, Sept. 4, 2021. PHOTO BY COLE BURSTON /AFP via Getty Images]
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