Natural Resources committee  That very much depends on the impacts of climate change on the forest in particular. When we compare the situation on the west coast of British Columbia, where forests can grow to several hundred years of age, the building may not store the carbon longer than the forest would. However, as we have just witnessed in Washington, California and Oregon, even those forests are at risk from climate change.

Natural Resources committee  We actually report exactly that way. Since 2015, Canada, in compliance with the international reporting guidelines of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, reports emissions from harvested wood products where and when they occur. That means that, if we export pallets to Europe, we in Canada must report the emissions associated with the burning of the pallets in Europe.

Natural Resources committee  The internationally reported estimate of the carbon emissions of the anthropogenic component—that's the human-caused component of emissions and removals in the managed forests, which is the area for which we have reporting obligations—in 2018 was 14 megatonnes. The important aspect here is that, in addition, we have large emissions from forest fires, which are in the natural disturbance component of the internationally reported emissions.

Natural Resources committee  We have to keep the numbers in perspective. The emissions from all other sectors are in the order of 570 million tonnes of CO2. The contribution of forests at the moment is small compared to that. The climate change impacts of wildfires on forests are very large and have been increasing in recent years.

Natural Resources committee  It varies tremendously between years. We have years like 2020 where we have very few forest fires across Canada. Then we have years like 2017 and 2018 where we have very large areas. The difference between—

Natural Resources committee  In extreme years, forest fire emissions can exceed half of that value, 250 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent.

Natural Resources committee  Good morning, Chair, and good morning committee. I thank you for the opportunity to be appearing as a witness. My name is Werner Kurz. I'm a senior research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service in Victoria. I lead the team that conducts the greenhouse gas inventories and projections for Canada's forest sector.

Environment committee  Fifty per cent of the...sorry.

Environment committee  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.

Environment committee  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.

Environment committee  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.

Environment committee  The cumulative impact of the mountain pine beetle in British Columbia is just over 17 million hectares, but that's not in a single year. This is the whole outbreak cycle since about 2000. The statistics for the defoliators vary, and all of these are cyclical insects. The area affected by insects is far greater than the area affected by either harvest or by fires, but the intensity of the impact of either of these other human or natural disturbances is far greater because insects kill....

Environment committee  Depending on where you are in the country, a significant fraction of the total harvest is always directed at recovering losses from natural disturbances, fires and insects, but—

Environment committee  It is a significant fraction of the total harvest area, but what I said earlier is that the other areas are larger, so we can only capture part of it. The reason for this is that the insects and the fires occur both in the managed and the unmanaged forest, and even within the managed forest, we don't have roads to all of the areas affected by natural disturbances.

Environment committee  I did not say that. I said that no matter how much you increase the resources, we will not be able to suppress all fires. That's what I said.