Forestry sector has a role in fighting climate change.

• Author: Robinson, David

A study by the Ontario Forestry Research Institute describes Ontario's forestry sector as "the managed forests AND the harvested wood products (HWP) originating from these forests." Forestry isn't just trees and the companies that harvest and process trees. According to this definition, our forestry sector includes all the houses built from northern wood in Toronto. And in Mississippi, if there are any. And in China. It includes wooden bowls and wooden tables, but not pellets, pulp, or paper.

The question the researchers were trying to answer using this definition is whether our forests are any good at carbon capture and sequestration. In other words, can this Northern Ontario resource industry contribute to the fight against climate change?

There is no doubt that there is a huge stock of carbon caught up in Northern Ontario trees and soils. The trouble is that mature forests give off about as much C02 as they capture. Trees die and rot. Forests burn. Left alone, the forests make no contribution to the fight against climate change.

Harvested wood products do store carbon, however. Using the new definition, Ontario's forestry sector increases global carbon stocks by 4.5 metric tonnes per year. That is more than Iceland's total fossil fuel emissions.

A house built with wood will usually stand at 80 years or more. Wooden picture frames can stay in use for centuries. As long as we don't let the wood product burn or rot, it is storing carbon. My newspapers, on the other hand, go into the recycling box in less than a week.

Paper is probably the most successful product at being recycled. In the end, though, most ends up rotting in landfills and producing methane in less than three years. As a greenhouse gas, methane is 80 times as bad CO2.

Pellets are just as bad. They are literally designed to be burned as quickly as possible. The economics of the pellet industry work better the faster pellets are burned.

It is true that studies show the pellets cut emissions if they replace coal, but natural gas does even better, is cheaper, and certainly cleaner.

Pelletizing our forest makes a very marginal contribution, and at best a short-term, stopgap contribution. And in purely economic terms, in the long run it is a silly idea to convert trees to energy on any large scale: energy is just about the cheapest commodity there...