Unceded Algonquin Territory, Ottawa, ON — March 27, 2025
Canada’s newly-released National inventory report: Greenhouse gas sources and sinks in Canada continues to understate the true climate impact of the industrial forestry sector, says Nature Canada.
The 2025 National Inventory Report’s reporting of forestry emissions falls short in three ways:
- Lack of Transparency: Despite calls from Canada’s Office of the Auditor General, logging emissions are still not reported separately in the Inventory, obscuring the industrial forestry sector’s climate impact.
- Biased Accounting: The federal government continues to exclude emissions from wildfires (estimated at 1,100 Mt in 2023) from its GHG totals, while claiming credit for a large carbon sink from forests that regrow naturally after fires (120 Mt in 2023).
- Underrepresentation of Emissions: The Inventory suggests that net emissions from Forest Land and Harvested Wood Products (HWP) were 18 Mt in 2023. However, if the bias in reporting of emissions and removals from natural disturbances is corrected, total net emissions from forestry in 2023 could be as high as 138 Mt.
“The government of Canada’s climate policy must be grounded in reality,” said Michael Polanyi, Policy and Campaign Manager at Nature Canada. “By misrepresenting forestry as a low-carbon sector, the government is enabling massive subsidies to a high-emitting industry while failing to address one of the country’s major sources of GHG emissions. Until the full scale of logging emissions is acknowledged, billions will be wasted on ineffective climate solutions.”
In 2023, Canada’s Office of the Auditor General raised concern about the lack of transparent and accurate reporting of the forestry sector emissions, concerns largely repeated by the Auditor General of British Columbia last week. Additionally, a 2024 study found that the government of Canada underreported logging emissions by an average of 90 Mt a year between 2005 and 2021.
A more detailed analysis of the forestry sector’s emissions impact in 2023 will be released by Nature Canada in coming weeks.
For more information or interviews:
Michael Polanyi
343-553-6060
mpolanyi@naturecanada.ca
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