Evidence of meeting #133 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was forests.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:20 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Canadian Forest Service, Department of Natural Resources
We have six.
Tony and Werner or a combined....
5:20 p.m.
Senior Research Scientist, Canadian Forest Service, Department of Natural Resources
Basically, fundamentally, the first thing to do is to increase the forest area where possible. Canada, unlike many other countries, does not have a significant problem of deforestation—in other words, the conversion of forest to other land uses—but we certainly do have opportunities for afforestation, whereby we take lands that are of marginal agricultural value or have been degraded from forest fires or some other causes and bring them back to act actively as carbon sinks. There are certainly many opportunities to manage our forests better to reduce the losses due to mortality, to go in and thin periodically, remove trees and basically manage forests so they are stronger carbon sinks.
The goal is to remove as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as possible. That being said, these forests cannot remove carbon dioxide indefinitely. They will grow older and bigger and become susceptible to insects, etc., so they are removing that carbon from the forest, allowing the next cycle to start again, and then making use of the carbon to the greatest extent possible.
To put it in perspective, we're removing about 180 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent of carbon in wood through the annual harvest. Roughly one quarter of the emissions from all other sectors is the CO2 that is in the wood that we remove from the forest, which was previously removed from the atmosphere. How we use that wood is critically important, and this is where we come back to the discussions we had previously about mass timber buildings and other ways of retaining that carbon in harvested wood products for the longest extent possible and while using these products to substitute for other products like steel, concrete, plastics, etc., that are very emissions-intensive themselves. If we could avoid producing steel or concrete to the extent that is possible and replaceable through wooden buildings, we could store the carbon from the forests in the building and avoid the emissions from steel and concrete.
The last point is that as we do all this, there will be residues and waste products at every stage in the process, from the slash piles that we discussed earlier to the bark and other material that is produced in various production facilities to construction waste and post-consumer waste. All of that material, if it can't be recycled or reused otherwise, can be converted into bioenergy, and in particular there are opportunities for second-generation liquid transportation fuels to help offset the very large emissions in the transportation sector using woody biomass as the raw materials.
This is in very broad strokes an outline of how this could be done, and of course I did not discuss potential implications for biodiversity, the impacts of climate change and some of the other complications.
5:20 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Canadian Forest Service, Department of Natural Resources
Do you have nothing to add, Tony?
5:20 p.m.
Senior Manager, Climate Change Policy, Canadian Forest Service, Department of Natural Resources
I think that was quite a complete summary. I think all I have to do is to try to boil it down, if I can, to about 10 words, or maybe a bit more: Create new forests. Manage forests to increase the sink and reduce fire risk. Use wood. Build with wood, and use waste wood for energy. Put it to some purpose.
5:20 p.m.
Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, CPC
Is there a particular type of plant or tree that absorbs carbon more than others do? If someone's landscaping their yard, is there stuff they can do to have an impact in terms of what they decide to plant?
5:25 p.m.
Senior Research Scientist, Canadian Forest Service, Department of Natural Resources
Fifty per cent of the...sorry.
5:25 p.m.
Senior Manager, Climate Change Policy, Canadian Forest Service, Department of Natural Resources
You go ahead, Werner.
5:25 p.m.
Senior Research Scientist, Canadian Forest Service, Department of Natural Resources
I can't see you, Tony, so apologies for interfering there.
Fifty per cent of the weight of wood is carbon, so basically it's any plant, any woody plant that grows fast and has a high density in its wood. An oak will have a higher density than a poplar, but it grows more slowly. At the end of the day, it comes down to how much carbon you can accumulate in the wood, in your forests, in your urban forests, in your parklands, and in your shelter belts. We have plenty of opportunities across the country to grow more trees and to remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in the process.
5:25 p.m.
Mr. John Aldag (Cloverdale—Langley City, Lib.)
Wayne, we'll go over to you for the last three minutes. This is the three-minute round now.
5:25 p.m.
Kootenay—Columbia, NDP
Thank you.
It's very interesting, and I want to continue the discussion a little. I don't want to create issues between the departments, but when I was taking out the trees, I was creating grasslands, native grasslands. In terms of carbon sequestration, an acre of trees—and I know it might depend on the age and the stage of the trees—versus an acre of native grassland, have you looked at which one is actually doing a better job in terms of carbon?
5:25 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Canadian Forest Service, Department of Natural Resources
I'll see if Werner has an answer, but you left out wetlands. I think wetlands are the most significant of all. There are serious consequences for climate change when we drain those wetlands.
Werner, do you have comments?
5:25 p.m.
Senior Research Scientist, Canadian Forest Service, Department of Natural Resources
Yes, in the long term the forest will have the higher carbon accumulation, simply because in grasslands you can accumulate only so much grass biomass. Yes, grasslands also add carbon to soils.
Having said that, in the context of the interior of British Columbia in particular, a mix of grasslands and forest can alter the fire risk. Having vast areas of contiguous forests is contributing in part to the very large fires. Designing a landscape that has more of a matrix of grasslands and forests may help reduce fire risks.
These questions have arisen out of the context of the fires in British Columbia in the last two years. Much research will be directed in the coming years on strategy toward reducing forest fire risks. For example, the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions has an active program on forest carbon management and opportunities in British Columbia.
5:25 p.m.
Kootenay—Columbia, NDP
I have the same question for agriculture. If I wanted to be a really conscientious environmental farmer, what crop would I grow to sequester the most carbon? Have you looked at that?
November 22nd, 2018 / 5:25 p.m.
Director General, Innovation Programs Directorate, Programs Branch, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food
I'll take the first stab and then hand it over.
It wouldn't be the crop. It would be your cropping method. The advent of no-till, better drainage and control of water on the landscape has done more to reduce agriculture's contribution to greenhouse gases than any other single.... As we were saying, it's the system.
Less disturbance of the soil will give you the greatest contribution to agriculture's contribution to the reduction.
5:25 p.m.
Director General, Ontario - Quebec Region, Science and Technology Branch, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food
No-till, reduction of summer fallow, cover crops, that will support, I think, a much stabler soil cover that will contribute to that carbon storage, carbon sequestration.
5:25 p.m.
Director General, Ontario - Quebec Region, Science and Technology Branch, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food
Yes. It's the practices.
5:25 p.m.
Mr. John Aldag (Cloverdale—Langley City, Lib.)
That takes us to the end of the time.
As always, I wanted to thank our Environment Canada officials for coming. We never get to see Natural Resources Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. It's been a real pleasure to have the other departments here with us today.
I know we had some wonderful information that will definitely be able to enrich the study we're currently doing.
Thank you all for being here. With that, the meeting is adjourned.