In Canada, nature-based solutions are more efficient in the agricultural sector. I think it would be incredibly politically tempting...so thank you for this question. It seems as though climate policy often concentrates on urban set-ups. That's mostly because most people live in cities. It leaves the rural areas feeling vastly abandoned, not concerned with and even negatively impacted.
If we think about farming, a transition to no-till agriculture, for example, which provides a large store of carbon in agricultural soil, could be supported by the federal government through training and incentives. Usually farms have a lot of buildings. There could be solar panels on these buildings so that farms could produce their own energy and maybe even sell energy to the grid, which would be beneficial. I actually come from a farming family. My daughter has a farm. She's a horticulturist, so it's a topic I really like.
People who have cattle could use manure and biodigestion to produce methane and then produce natural gas, which is renewable and could be used for heavy machinery. There are really exciting examples, in particular in Manitoba, of farmers who are embracing the transition and moving forward. I think it's a topic of interest. It's not a big sector of emissions for Canada, with more or less 9% of greenhouse gases, which is maybe why it has not reached the forefront, but between the carbon we could put in the soil and the rest of the modernization of farming, I think it's a really good avenue.
In Canada, unfortunately, I think the forest sector is now so stressed that we should aim at protecting it rather than considering it a solution. We want to try to limit the climate warming up and drying so that our forests can still help us. I don't think we can invest in that as a natural climate solution.