Canada’s boreal forest comprises about a third of the huge forest that circles the northern hemisphere, mostly north of the 50th parallel.
The boreal forest originated with the end of the last ice age and covers a tenth of the Earth’s land surface. Canada has retained 91 percent of the forest that existed since Europeans first settled.
There are 318 billion trees (more than 8,000 for every one of the 37 million population), mostly conifers, and it is home to 85 species of mammals including grizzly, brown and black bears, 130 species of fish and 300 of birds.
Many other countries have scarcely any of their boreal forest remaining, such as Sweden with only 5 percent left.
The lack of boreal forest in other countries is quite tragic because in Canada the boreal forest is effectively a carbon sponge, capturing and storing carbon in the trees and the peatland.
In Canada’s north, the temperature can easily fall to -65 C. The cold acts to hinder the release of carbon dioxide from dying and decomposing trees.
Furthermore, in areas where there is permafrost, the carbon remains trapped under the soil.
A quick google search would reveal a plethora of articles saying that Canada’s forest emits more carbon than it absorbs.
When these articles claim Canada’s managed forests aren’t a carbon sink anymore, they are misleading as the data typically does not include Canada’s unmanaged forest, accounting for approximately 35 percent of its total forest area.
Net carbon emissions in Canada’s managed forest: Areas subject to human activities, 1990–2016
So how is it that the Canadian boreal forest has changed from functioning as a carbon sink of 115 million tonnes of CO2 in 1992 to being a source of 221 million tonnes of CO2 in 2015?
The Liberal government headed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his minority government cronies on environmental policies (the Green Party and New Democratic Party) say it is clearly a result of, you guessed it, man-made climate change (see his twitter feed here).
It is to suggest flooding, forest fires, and natural disasters did not exist at all prior to the green agenda.
In Canada, we have a Prime Minister who emphatically joined a climate strike in September in Montreal, Quebec, and met with Greta Thunberg. She promptly told him he was not doing well enough and he agreed.
As the fourth-largest supplier of oil in the world, never has a nation or a prime minister done so much to torpedo their own nation’s major industry.
Countless canceled projects and scandals – Northern Gateway, Energy East, Trans Mountain, Keystone XL, Line 3 and now Coastal Gaslink pipeline. Canada cannot get anything built.
Despite the self-sabotage, Canada is still projected to fail its ambitious Paris Agreement pledge to reduce emissions by 232 megatonnes in 2030.
The data indicate that Canada emits 722.29 (excluding land-use) megatonnes of CO2 per year and 585 megatonnes result from the energy sector alone (2017).
In total, Canada is responsible for 1.6 percent of the global carbon emissions and is the tenth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world.
Interestingly enough, Canada has elected not to include the forests when tabulating its emissions.
Given the option, Canada elected to attempt some clever accounting, since negating forest fires could help Canada meet its Paris Agreement pledge.
Surprising that a country can just elect not to include whole sectors (such as forestry) and yet Canada is looking into selling carbon credits to other countries in what the Paris Agreement refers to as ITMOs (internationally transferred mitigation outcomes) by using the forest to make the claim.
Thus, Canada is hoping the accounting will include wetlands, farmland, and forestry but please exclude the forest fires and pests.
Back in reality, the boreal forest has been suffering from an increase in a variety of factors including forest fires as a result of humans (setting fires or carelessness) and lightning, pests (such as the pine beetle), environmental policies against active forest management and to an extent, the modest warming from climate change.
First and foremost, among the culprits, fires are particularly damaging and result in 170 tonnes of CO2 released per hectare burned.
Next, pests are subsiding in recent years but still serve as the second leading concern hurting the boreal forest.
Then, of course, the forestry industry is heavily regulated, less than 0.5 percent is available to harvest annually; and thus, the effects on emissions are negligible.
Furthermore, the data actually infers that where there is forestry activity, there is a negative carbon count.
Lastly, the bureaucracy behind the current forest management is laughable and extremely mismanaged.
The climate change alarmists and environmentalists have wormed their way with their degrees in environmental studies into jobs managing the forests, no doubt created by Justin Trudeau in the ‘green’ and ‘clean’ sectors.
Now they are running the show and crafting policies in the logging and forestry industry that sadly misses the mark.
What we are seeing are ineffective policies from the new wave of clean sustainable management so-called experts when what we need are methods such as strategically planned burns, varying the species regenerated, thinning and proper harvesting of timber.
If Canada were to improve its management of fires, continue to see a decline in pests and increase forestry, the negative drawbacks of the boreal forest could be negated and the reality is that Canada could be charging other countries for its carbon credits.
Think of the billions Canada could be receiving to compensate for the loss of all those oil and gas projects Trudeau has canceled. However, I wouldn’t hold my breath.
The current government believes everything can be solved with more taxation and the Prime Minister believes the budget will ‘balance itself’, while he travels using not one but two private jets (though not at the same time).
Meanwhile, left alone, the boreal forest will continue to be mismanaged despite being one of Canada’s strengths and biggest assets in the carbon wars. Instead, we’re banning plastic bags…
Read more at Conservative Woman
Forestry was the first industry in Australia to feel the force of green wrath.
The response from the political right here was largely underwhelming, while the old centre-left’s response was even worse.
Australia, the only nation with a continent and one of the World’s largest islands to itself, now is a net importer of timber and forestry jobs are constantly under threat.
Now only if man made emissions had anything to do with anything… Do you know, with all the trees in Canada, one city in north central Canada was IMPORTING, tree pulp biomass from Sweden to burn in their retro fitted former coal burning electricity generation plant… Yes, I said it… Our green beanies in government are retarded (sorry retarded folk)
From 2009 – Harper government again.
“Worse yet, the experts predict that Canada’s forests will remain net carbon sources, as opposed to carbon storage “sinks,” until at least 2022, and possibly much longer.
“We are seeing a significant distortion of the natural trend,” said Werner Kurz, senior research scientist at the Canadian Forest Service and the leading expert on carbon cycles in the nation’s forests. “Since 1999, and especially in the last five years, the forests have shifted from being a carbon sink to a carbon source.”
So serious is the problem that Canada’s federal government effectively wrote off the nation’s forests in 2007 as officials submitted their plans to abide by the international Kyoto Protocol, which obligates participating governments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
Under the Kyoto agreement, governments are permitted to count forest lands as credits, or offsets, when calculating their national carbon emissions. But Canadian officials, aware of the scientific studies showing that their forests actually are emitting excess carbon, quietly omitted the forest lands from their Kyoto compliance calculations.”
https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/chi-canada-trees_wittjan02-story.html
Get stuffed, Jack. Read the comment from David Lewis @2:48 pm. The Canadian bureaucracy was wormy with activists. I have always believed that idealistic teenagers pursue environmental degrees. Government jobs await with all the perks. Public servants fear Conservative government. They vote selfishly. Stephen Harper may very well be the last Canadian leader. Trudeau serves the activists.
I gather you missed this part. That was under the Harper Conservative government, who know then that our forests were sources, not sinks. That might be one of the reasons he muzzled government scientists.
So serious is the problem that Canada’s federal government effectively wrote off the nation’s forests in 2007 as officials submitted their plans to abide by the international Kyoto Protocol, which obligates participating governments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
Under the Kyoto agreement, governments are permitted to count forest lands as credits, or offsets, when calculating their national carbon emissions. But Canadian officials, aware of the scientific studies showing that their forests actually are emitting excess carbon, quietly omitted the forest lands from their Kyoto compliance calculations.
Back then, farmers offered to go no – till if they received funding. It looked promising, but was rejected. I suspect that the whole concept of carbon sinks was rejected by the IPCC because it was too easy, no pain, no sacrifices, no taxes. They were out to shut down oil and coal. No way to get around it.
Read carefully. The IPCC has not rejected carbon sinks. The Harper government chose not to include Canada’s forests in our carbon budget, because they were net sources of CO2.
Regenerative farming is growing practice. It is recognized as a temporary fix.
“While our lands can be managed to increase carbon storage, the increase can only temporarily offset greenhouse gas emissions. Many view land-based carbon sinks as buying valuable time to address the more significant challenge – reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”
https://ssca.ca/soil-carbon-sequestration
From a 2014 Natural Resources Canada report:
“Impacts of climate change on forests and the forest sector have already been observed in Canada. The most visible climate-related impacts are the changes in disturbance regimes, such as fire and pest outbreaks, and those associated with extreme climate events such as drought, windstorms and ice storms (Lemprière et al., 2008; Williamson et al., 2009), which can have immediate social and economic consequences. ”
https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/sites/www.nrcan.gc.ca/files/earthsciences/pdf/assess/2014/pdf/Full-Report_Eng.pdf
Guess who the government was at that point.
Oh so is Canada supposed to cut down 318 billion trees to be burnt in China or Sweden in order to make a new carbon sink ?
This whole thing is the worst mis direction of capital in history .
Coronas will do more damage to the EU than anything to date .
Spend a $trillion on fighting a non-issue or save lives now ? Hmm .
This article points a problem not unique to forestry or Canada. Environmental liberals are weasling their way into bureaucratic positions in forestry, the EPA, and others and from their implement damaging policies.
As more and more the AGW scam is uncovered it’s becoming more and more obvious that we need more C02 not less but our moron PM Justin prefers to genuflect to the mentally unstable bubble gummer Greta Thunberg
Trudeau sounds like a typical Liberal Democrat in this nation blame it all on a fake crisis its no doupt that Trudeau is just another Globalists just like most all Democratic liberals are
Please read this….
https://principia-scientific.org/carbon-dioxide-water-sunshine-life/
Global warming started as a means to fulfill political agendas, an excuse for new taxes, to force de-industrialization, and expand the power of government. When they first did calculations on what they believed was the impact of carbon dioxide on warming, it came up short. It wasn’t enough to cause concern. To get the results they wanted, they added water vapor.
An informative essay from an author who seems to accept AGW and the initiatives of the IPCC.
A cursory look at the carbon cycle reveals humanity’s minor role in producing CO2 and the Earth’s ability to maintain balance. The carbon cycle is robust. It is the Gaia worshippers who are feeble.
Using carbon isotope analysis the nearly 50% increase in atmospheric CO2 over the past 2.5 centuries can be directly attributed to the burning of fossil fuels. The last time CO2 levels were this high was 3-5 million years ago.