{"id":50452,"date":"2021-10-26T19:41:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-26T23:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/?p=50452"},"modified":"2021-11-04T16:48:50","modified_gmt":"2021-11-04T20:48:50","slug":"forest-offsets-could-doom-canadas-climate-ambitions-and-the-cop-heres-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/story\/50452\/forest-offsets-could-doom-canadas-climate-ambitions-and-the-cop-heres-why\/","title":{"rendered":"Forest \u201coffsets\u201d could doom Canada\u2019s climate ambitions and the COP – here\u2019s why"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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This week, Greenpeace Canada made a submission<\/a> to the federal government\u2019s Strategic Assessment of Climate Change<\/em>. In it, we argue that using forests as an excuse for big polluters to keep pumping out greenhouse gases would be a disaster for Canada\u2019s climate ambitions and is no solution to global biodiversity loss.<\/p>\n\n

So-called \u201coffsets\u201d (aka \u201cexcuses to pollute\u201d) will also be a key issue at the imminent COP in Glasgow during which nations will debate whether or not to open the global markets to this dangerous threat to real climate action.<\/p>\n\n

But what exactly are offsets? How do they threaten our efforts to prevent climate change? And what is the alternative? Read on.<\/p>\n\n

Offsets from the forest<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

\u201cOffsetting\u201d is where companies and governments try to meet their greenhouse gas reduction targets while still emitting them. <\/p>\n\n

A \u201ccarbon offset\u201d describes an amount of greenhouse gas emissions that is avoided or sequestered in order to compensate for emissions occurring elsewhere.This allows big polluters to continue to emit massive amounts of greenhouse gases on the shaky assumption that they will somehow be balanced out.<\/p>\n\n

In the case of forest offsets, this usually refers to an area of forest protected or trees planted to make up for ongoing pollution into the atmosphere.<\/p>\n\n

So an oil company might pay someone else to plant some trees or say they\u2019re protecting a forest that otherwise would have been logged, then continue to emit carbon but claim it\u2019s been saved elsewhere. Makes sense right? Of course not. <\/p>\n\n

Thankfully a number of journalists and activists have been digging further into this self-serving \u201csolution\u201d to climate change and some terrible case studies have been exposed. See: Doubts over Shell\u2019s \u2018drive carbon neutral\u2019 claim<\/a> and A Top U.S. Seller of Carbon Offsets Starts Investigating Its Own Projects<\/a>..<\/p>\n\n

Forests are no excuse to pollute<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Using Canadian forests as an excuse to keep emitting greenhouse gases is terrible public policy. Here\u2019s a few reasons why.<\/p>\n\n

First and foremost, the fundamental premise is flawed – big polluters using their climate-driven profits buying up nature so they can keep on polluting. The very same companies who got us into this mess by irresponsibly using our shared natural resources in the first place.<\/p>\n\n

Second, Canada\u2019s forests are in rough shape thanks to climate change, chronic mismanagement by the logging industry and inaction by governments to protect them. As a result, they have already turned them into net emitters<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

So while forests are one of our best allies in the fight against climate change, we must understand that there are limits to their ability to remove carbon dioxide and that they are simply unable to offset Canada\u2019s huge industrial emissions. We need to use the limited additional carbon we can sequester in forests to offset our past fossil fuel emissions, not enable tomorrow\u2019s pollution. <\/p>\n\n

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There are also significant problems with these types of offsets in practice. For example:<\/p>\n\n