Canada is underestimating carbon emissions from forestry sector, environmental groups allege

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The forestry sector is a significant source of Canada's carbon emissions, but that's not always apparent because of the way we count those emissions, four environmental organizations argue in a new report.

The sector underestimates annual emissions by at least 80 megatonnes of CO2-equivalent, which is about what Canada's buildings sector emits, the report says. 

"We think there are major biases and errors in the way that it's currently being reported," said Michael Polanyi, policy and campaign manager for nature-based solutions at Nature Canada, which advocates for protection of endangered species and habitats.

Nature Canada teamed up with Environmental Defence, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Nature Quebec to produce the report, released Thursday.

The main issue with Canada's emissions accounting for the forestry sector is that it has an overly broad definition of "managed forests," the report says. Under United Nations guidelines, countries only have to report so-called anthropogenic emissions, those caused by human activities. For the forestry sector, that means only counting emissions in forest areas being used for activities such as logging.

But the report says Canada's emissions accounting includes areas of intact forests not currently being logged, which absorb carbon, while excluding the carbon released when those forests are affected by wildfires, pests or disease. 

The national inventory report, which is Canada's official accounting to the UN, explains that managed forests include those used for harvesting as well as those that have undergone fire management or pest control.

Canada says it excludes wildfires from its calculations because the amount of carbon released is huge, and it's difficult to asses what proportion of the emissions is directly attributable to human activity. But the report authors say that is an over-compensation that does not accurately reflect the carbon emissions going into the atmosphere. 

Polanyi and his co-authors say international guidelines give countries wide leeway to decide what is considered a managed forest. They recommend narrowing the definition of managed forests and not counting the carbon removed by older trees, as well as counting emissions from logged areas where wildfires have occurred.

In 2019, managed forests had net emissions of 4.6 Mt CO2-equivalent, according to the official government figures, a tiny part (0.6 per cent) of Canada's total emissions of 730 Mt CO2-equivalent. But according to the proposed accounting outlined in the report, the sector's emissions should have been around 85 Mt CO2-equivalent, or nearly 10 per cent of Canada's total emissions for that year.

The report raises several areas where its authors would like to see changes, including:

Sean Thomas, a professor of forestry and conservation at the University of Toronto, reviewed the report before it was released but had no role in writing it. He said it made a strong case that the forest carbon accounting process in Canada, while adhering to international rules, "is not really giving an accurate picture of the overall emissions of carbon from Canadian forests."

"What the report points out is that the agencies in Canada that are engaged in this carbon accounting process are taking kind of aggressive advantage of some of the loopholes that exist in the framework," he said.