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Sierra Club BC calls on provincial government to end silence about skyrocketing forest emissions

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B.C. government’s own data show total greenhouse gas emissions for 2018 are more than three times larger than official numbers, when including uncounted emissions from “forest management”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

September 3, 2020

In early August the B.C. government shared a media release and data file showing B.C.’s official 2018 greenhouse gas emissions had increased by three percent compared to 2017, from 65.7 million tonnes of CO2 in 2017 to 68 million tonnes in 2018.

Not mentioned in the release but vital, the government’s own data shows emissions from provincial forest management reached 237 million tonnes of carbon dioxide—more than three times the “official” amount counted. (Uncounted climate pollution is referred to as “emissions not included in inventory” in the province’s data file.)

Sierra Club BC calls on the B.C. government to:

  • end the silence around uncounted and skyrocketing forest management emissions;
  • declare a forest climate emergency and
  • take immediate steps to reduce forest emissions by protecting forests and improving forest management using the best available science and Indigenous knowledge.

When combined, counted and uncounted annual emissions for 2018 add up to 305 million tonnes, with uncounted forest emissions representing a staggering 78 percent. These emissions are caused by clearcut logging, slash burning and worsening climate impacts like wildfires and insect outbreaks.

“The provincial government’s silence about the carbon bomb unleashed from B.C.’s forests is deafening. It is unacceptable for the B.C. government to defend business as usual logging practices while ignoring the exploding growth of emissions from forest management,“ said Sierra Club BC’s senior forest and climate campaigner Jens Wieting.

2017 and 2018 were record-breaking wildfire years, made worse by continued clearcut logging. Research in Australia—where forests and communities were impacted by devastating fires earlier this year—shows that fires were worse in forest landscapes already damaged by industrial logging. In contrast, old-growth forests can better withstand climate impacts, protect communities from climate impacts and often survive forest fires, as did some of California’s Redwood forests this summer.

Despite these findings, old-growth logging continues in B.C. at a rate of about 500 soccer fields per day. This spring, the B.C. government received a report from an old-growth panel tasked with developing recommendations on old-growth management. The province is expected to release this report in the near future, but it remains unclear whether they will respond with meaningful steps to protect old-growth.

“British Columbians expect climate action leadership addressing all provincial emissions, not just one fifth of them. We cannot save a livable climate without saving our forests,” said Wieting.

The most endangered old-growth forests with the biggest trees hold the greatest amount of carbon per hectare. This means, in addition to preserving intact ecosystems, they offer the greatest benefit when protected by avoiding massive carbon losses from clearcutting. Yet, B.C.’s climate action plan CleanBC does not address forest emissions or state any reduction targets or actions related to them.

“It is not too late for the B.C. government to amend CleanBC to make sure it addresses forest emissions as part of its efforts towards an economic recovery strategy post COVID-19,” added Wieting.

Forest conservation and improved forestry are opportunities to support communities and create jobs that reduce carbon pollution. This can be accomplished through support for Indigenous-led conservation solutions, a shift from raw log exports to value-added wood product manufacturing, restored government stewardship, ecoforestry and restoration initiatives.

“We can ‘Build Back Better’ in a way that centres communities, a livable climate, all living beings and the ecosystems which sustain us,” added Wieting. “The province can take the first step by taking immediate action to safeguard endangered old-growth forests in response to the provincial old-growth panel report.”

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Media contact:

Jens Wieting
Senior Forest and Climate Campaigner, Sierra Club BC 
604-354-5312 
jens@sierraclub.bc.ca


Links to references mentioned in this release:

Provincial media release regarding BC’s 2018 emissions
https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2020ENV0040-001466

Provincial GHG emissions data for 2018
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/climate-change/data/provincial-inventory

Sierra Club BC report “Hidden, Ignored and Growing” calling for a BC forest emissions report (2019)
https://sierraclub.bc.ca/wp-content/uploads/SCBC-Forest-Emissions-Report-Jan-19.pdf

Nature article “Recent Australian wildfires made worse by logging and associated forest management”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-020-1195-5.epdf

 

Photo: Emily Hoffpauir/Wilderness Committee

Sierra Club BC reacts to expert old-growth report showing B.C.’s ancient giants logged to the brink

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

June 4, 2020

An independent scientists’ report released today—B.C.’s Old-Growth Forest: A Last Stand for Biodiversity—shows in detail how shockingly little is left of B.C.’s most endangered old-growth forests, in particular those with very big trees. Of the little that remains, only a small fraction is protected from logging.

“This report shows that things are worse than we thought for B.C.’s ancient giants,” said Jens Wieting, Sierra Club BC’s forest and climate campaigner. “These big old and ancient trees existed for thousands of years and 100 years of industrial logging has cut all but three percent. Every natural system has a breaking point and we have reached it.”

Sierra Club BC supports the report authors in calling on the B.C. government to ‘stop the bleed’ and ‘immediately place a moratorium on logging in ecosystems and landscapes with very little old forest.’

“Only about 35,000 hectares of old-growth forests with very big old trees remain across the province, and only a portion have effective protection. We are losing a legacy and all the environmental services that these forests provide for community and human health,” said Wieting. “It is unconscionable that the last remaining big old trees are still being logged as a result of what the report authors call ‘loopholes, gaming, arithmetic errors and simple lack of monitoring.’”

The authors also found that many old-growth management areas, created to protect old-growth forests, do not actually contain old forest.

“In B.C. we have these globally unique old-growth forest ecosystems and our analysis shows they are almost at their endpoint,” said Dr. Rachel Holt, one of the scientists who wrote the report together with Dr. Karen Price and Dave Daust. “We wrote this report under our own steam because government information was either misleading or not making it out to the public. The current management approach utterly fails to protect the ecological health of productive old-growth. We need to change our approach and manage for resilience—for communities, jobs and ecosystems—and not wait to transition until the last big old trees are gone”

“These scientists have painted a stark picture and the fate of these big ancient trees is in our hands. The B.C. government has the opportunity to make conservation and environmental restoration a cornerstone of the COVID-19 economic recovery with a vision for healthy communities, healthy ecosystems and preventing future disasters,” said Wieting. “Investing in forest conservation and improved forestry will create long-term jobs, support the health and wellbeing of B.C. residents, and defend our communities from climate impacts like flooding and drought. This can be accomplished through support for Indigenous-led conservation solutions, ecosystem restoration, investments in government stewardship and a shift to ecoforestry.”

The report’s detailed analysis for all types of provincial forests shows that forests with big old trees never covered more than about ten percent of B.C.’s total forest cover (approximately 50 million hectares, more than half of the province). Only about eight percent (approximately 415,000 hectares) of the original extent of these intact forests with big trees remain as old-growth today across the province. In the case of those forests with very big old trees, only about three percent remain today (approximately 35,000 hectares).

Intact old-growth forests are more resilient than degraded forests and can best protect communities from climate impacts like water shortage, flooding, extreme rainfall and the dangers of landslides identified in B.C.’s 2019 Climate Risk Assessment Report.

The provincial government has opportunities to protect old-growth forests through COVID-19 economic recovery initiatives, logging moratoria, the creation of new protected areas, and amendments to provincial forestry laws and regulations that restore the ecological integrity of B.C.’s forests and close loopholes. Old-growth forests can also be protected by enacting a science-based old-growth strategy in response to the provincial old-growth panel review and implementing an endangered species act.

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B.C.’s Old-Growth Forest: A Last Stand for Biodiversity: https://sierraclub.bc.ca/wp-content/uploads/bcs-old-growth-forest-a-last-stand-for-biodiversity-report-2020.pdf

 

Media contact:

Jens Wieting
Senior Forest and Climate Campaigner, Sierra Club BC 
604-354-5312 
jens@sierraclub.bc.ca

 

Photo: TJ Watt/Ancient Forest Alliance

New data shows B.C.’s carbon emissions increased 3.5% in 2018, despite plans to decrease climate pollution

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

April 29, 2020

The new Canadian greenhouse gas emissions report shows that despite efforts to reduce climate pollution, B.C.’s annual emissions increased by 3.5% from 2017 to 2018, from 63.3 to 65.5 million tonnes annual emissions.

B.C.’s 2018 carbon emissions are even higher than in 2007, when the province announced its first emission reduction target of -33% by 2020. This goal is now unachievable and has been updated by the current government to -40% by 2030. There are currently only 10 years left to reach the new target.

Climate change as a result of carbon emissions is putting B.C. communities at increasing risk of wildfires, droughts, flooding, sea level rise and glacial melt, as outlined in the B.C. government’s 2019 climate risk assessment report. It is vital that emissions be reduced for our collective health and safety.

Post-pandemic economic recovery must reduce greenhouse gas emissions while supporting jobs and communities. CleanBC, the provincial climate plan, provides a blueprint for investments in job-creating climate strategies such as building retrofits and public transit that need to be a part of any economic stimulus package. Without strengthening, however, the plan is not strong enough to deliver the needed emission reductions.

Achieving our targets will also require B.C. to stop subsidizing the expansion of the fracked gas industry, including building LNG Canada and the Coastal GasLink pipeline. This infrastructure is expected to be among the biggest polluters of the country and undermines efforts to reduce B.C.’s emissions.

To reduce carbon emissions, investments in post-pandemic economic recovery must also protect nature and reform forest management to restore the health of B.C.’s forests. Healthy forests act as carbon sinks, removing carbon from the atmosphere. Yet as a result of poor forest management and worsening climate impacts like fires and insect outbreaks, for several years B.C.’s forests have been losing more carbon than they absorb.

Investing in forest conservation and improved forestry can create jobs that reduce carbon pollution through support for Indigenous-led conservation solutions, value-added wood product manufacturing, government stewardship, ecoforestry and restoration.

“B.C. has an opportunity to respond to the current economic crisis in a way that also addresses the climate crisis and respects nature’s limits,” says Sierra Club BC’s Senior Forest and Climate Campaigner Jens Wieting. “Just as we are taking the warnings about COVID-19 seriously, let’s also take the warnings about climate and ecosystem breakdown seriously. There will be no vaccination to save our natural life support systems, once they are gone. We must spend every dollar to ensure a safe future, not spend on things that leave us more vulnerable to future disasters.”

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Canada’s National Inventory Report (NIR) — B.C. data in part 3 (pages 33/34):  https://unfccc.int/documents/224829 
 
B.C. climate risk assessment:
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/climate-change/adaptation/risk-assessment 

 

Media contact:

Jens Wieting
Senior Forest and Climate Campaigner, Sierra Club BC 
604-354-5312 
jens@sierraclub.bc.ca

 

Photo: Leila Darwish

No New Money For Oil and Gas Companies—Give It To Workers—Say Large Collection of Groups Representing More Than One Million Canadians

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

March 24, 2020

Ottawa—A large collection of health, faith, environmental, labour and social justice groups, representing one million three hundred thousand Canadians, have sent a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau and his cabinet asking that in the federal bailout to the oil and gas industry, expected later this week, no more money be given to companies, only to workers.

“The fossil fuel industry is counting on Canadians being too occupied coping with an ongoing health crisis to register that our country is considering a massive transfer of public funds to support the very industry most likely to cause the next health crisis,” says Dr. Courtney Howard, Board President of Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE). “This is a crucial tipping point, and climate change must factor into all of our decision making,” she added. “The policies we pass now must benefit all Canadians and set us up for a post-COVID future we can step into with confidence.”

The letter states:

The federal government has the opportunity with this stimulus package to immediately and directly support workers in Alberta and across the country while also investing in what is needed to grow and support a low carbon economy, and the kind of economy that can weather storms.

The Federal government should not provide a bail out to oil and gas companies in the form of share purchases or loan guarantees, said groups.

“Governments must prioritize investing in Canadians, not corporations,” said Julia Levin, Climate and Energy Program Manager at Environmental Defence Canada. “This means not offering a multibillion dollar gift to already highly-subsidized oil and gas companies. The federal government should be focused on the health and resilience of workers and their families in the immediate and beyond – in this sector and all the impacted sectors across the country – who require urgent financial support in this unprecedented time.”

Groups laid out three critical measures for the stimulus package, including money for orphan well cleanup should be administered by an independent fund with representation from Indigenous communities, local governments and landowners who can ensure it is used to reclaim wells where the company is bankrupt and its remaining assets have already been spent for this purpose.

Groups pointed out that the federal government has committed to the Just Transition Act and now is the time to put in place a recovery program with measures to hasten a just transition and protect workers as oil and gas production declines.

“There is no better time than right now for the federal government to provide immediate financial support, as well as funding, retraining and education so that oil and gas workers can have long-term, stable jobs now and into the future,” said Steve Moran, National Coordinator of the Green Economy Network, which represents a number of organizations including labour.

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Media contacts: 

Melissa Hughes, Communications Director, CAPE, melissa@cape.ca
Barbara Hayes, Communications Manager, Environmental Defence, bhayes@environmentaldefence.ca
Steve Moran, National Coordinator, Green Economy Network


Featured photo by Arthur Chapman

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