Is Ottawa being deceptive about the carbon emissions from logging? Critics say yes
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Loading... - Anika White
- 02 Nov 2022
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As world leaders prepare to gather in Egypt for the annual COP climate summit next week, more than 70 environmental, health and Indigenous groups are calling on the Canadian government to come clean on the real carbon footprint of logging.
In a letter to Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson to be delivered Wednesday, the groups said they were concerned that official federal emissions numbers put logging emissions below net zero, while an independent analysis says they’re actually on par with Alberta oilsands production.
“We have to stop pretending that we’re getting ahead on climate change by using industrial logging,” said Jay Ritchlin, nature director at the David Suzuki Foundation, and a signatory of the letter. “There needs to be revision of the way we count the carbon emissions from forestry.”
The letter, obtained by the Star, raises concerns that Canada neither reports nor has a plan to reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by logging.
“This is in contrast to other large economic sectors, whose emissions are clearly reported,” the letter reads. “Canada will not meet its 2030 climate and nature commitments unless all economic sectors take action to reduce GHG emissions.”
The government does not produce a simple number for the emissions from logging in its official accounting of GHG emissions. Unlike most industries, emissions from forestry are grouped together in a “land use” category that accounts for the natural carbon sequestering performed by trees as well as the results of human activity: the emissions produced by logging, and the release of sequestered carbon by burning wood or allowing it to rot. Read More...
