PM fiddles while forests burn

Re: 2013 was one of hottest years ever, greenhouse gases increasing, July 18


The Harper government is blowing hot air and lying to the public about the level of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada. Higher temperatures due to climate change have severe impacts in Canada, including increasing the number of forest fires.

As the temperature goes up, the frequency and severity of fire (and pest infestation) increase. An average of 9,000 fires burn more than 2 million hectares of forest each year in Canada. This is twice the average area burned in the 1970s (scientists from the NRC’s Canadian Forest Service predicts that it will double again by the end of the century).

Every year the Canadian government has to report its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). One sector “not reported” has to do with the level of emissions produced by forest fires from the managed forest sector and wildfires. In 2012, Environment Canada estimated that GHG emissions from this sector was a “net source” of 41 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent to the atmosphere.

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These emissions are excluded from the national inventory totals, except for one year: ironically, the only year where the Harper government reports GHG emissions to the UNFCCC from the land and forest sector is the year “2020.” For that year (and that year only), contrary to all observations in the field over the last decade and future predictions from its own scientists, Canada will register negative GHG emissions in this sector, or a “sink” of 28 Mt CO2 eq.

Instead of a total of 762 Mt (CO2 eq) of GHG emissions for 2020, the government of Canada’s report to the UNFCCC predicts a total of 734 Mt, which is a little bit lower (-0.4 per cent) than the year 2005. Playing with numbers won’t help the fact that Stephen Harper’s target of reducing GHG emissions by 17 per cent by 2020 is still a faraway dream.

Rene Ebacher, Toronto