Canada’s 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan includes natural climate solutions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore ecosystems to contribute to climate change mitigation and deliver societal co-benefits. Healthy ecosystems do everything from sequestering carbon to filtering toxic substances from the air, water, and soil, contributing to Canadians’ mental health, and helping reduce the costs of extreme weather events. Actions include:
- Planting trees/protecting and restoring grasslands and wetlands
- Improving agricultural land management to capture/carbon storage
- Improving forest management/reducing deforestation
- Reducing wildfire impacts through land management changes
Canada’s managed lands are both a source and a sink of GHG emissions. Land use activities such as timber harvesting, land conversion, and natural disturbances such as forest fires and insect infestations release GHG emissions. On the other hand, land use activities and management can also result in GHG removals. For example, as forests recover and trees grow, carbon is removed from the atmosphere and converted into wood by trees (as biological carbon sequestration).
Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) reported that natural disturbances in 2022 accounted for 93 Mt CO2e, whereas the influence of human activities on agricultural lands and forests was 52 Mt CO2e. Canada develops its forest-related GHG inventory estimates and emission and accounting projections using scientific and internationally recognized methodology. Sequestration of carbon in nature is reversible—captured carbon can be released by wildfires, land-use or land management changes, or climate change itself. Continued climate warming is projected to increase further emissions from wildfires, insects, and droughts in Canada’s forests.
Canada has taken a number of actions since 2023:
- The Natural Climate Solutions 10-year, $4 billion fund includes Natural Resources Canada’s 2 Billion Trees Program, ECCC’s Nature Smart Climate Solutions Fund, and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Agricultural Climate Solutions Program. These programs expect to build up to reduce emissions by 13-17 Mt CO2e annually in 2050.
- Canada’s 25 by 25 and 30 by 30 commitments to conserve and protect 25% of Canada’s land and 25% of Canada’s waters by 2025 and work towards 30% of each by 2030 are grounded in science, Indigenous knowledge, and local perspectives.
- Natural Infrastructure’s $200 million fund offers natural or hybrid approaches to protect the natural environment (erosion prevention, flood protection, regulating temperature
extremes, activities associated with climate hazards, and reducing loss of important habitats and species). It supports healthy and resilient communities (increasing functionality of ecological processes for stormwater diversion, infiltration or detention, groundwater infiltration and replenishment, water pre-filtration, and wastewater treatment). It also contributes to climate change mitigation (increasing the capacity of natural systems and processes to sink and store emissions, such as carbon sequestration, or through energy efficiency benefits). It improves Canadians’ access to nature with increased public green space and active transportation.
- Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas and Indigenous Guardians programs are priorities.
- To address the interconnected crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, Canada has allocated at least 20% of its $5.3 billion climate finance commitment to nature-based climate solutions with biodiversity co-benefits in developing countries.
Planting trees or restoring wetlands can take up to 10 years to reap benefits. The most excellent mitigation benefits occur over the long term, contributing to net-zero emission goals by 2050, while helping communities and ecosystems adapt to climate change impacts. To meet Canada’s 2030 target, Canada invested $780 million in a Nature Smart Climate Solutions fund for projects that conserve, restore, and enhance wetlands, peatlands, and grasslands to store and capture carbon.
The carbon stored in ocean and coastal ecosystems such as tidal wetlands, riparian habitats, and seagrass meadows is known as “blue carbon.” Scientists estimate these ecosystems can hold up to 3-5 times the carbon absorbed by forests, the traditional carbon “sinks”. While not exclusively nature-based, negative emissions technologies permanently remove and store CO2 from the atmosphere and may be instrumental in meeting Canada’s emissions targets, particularly when combined with other mitigation measures. To this end, Canada commits to continuing to explore these technologies, particularly in facilities where biomass is an energy source.
According to a Nature United report (2021), natural climate solutions could reduce our emissions by as much as 78.2Mt/CO2e a year in 2030 through forest protection (30Mt/CO2e/yr), better land management (44.4Mt/CO2e/yr), and restoration of logged forests with new plantings (3.8Mt/CO2/yr). That’s more than 10% of Canada’s total emissions.
Floods, heat waves, air pollution, fires, and storms increasingly threaten Canadian cities. Green infrastructure, like green roofs, helps cool the air, absorb excess water, and reduce energy use while supporting biodiversity, creating more green space, and making cities more livable.
When partnerships result, natural climate solutions can provide tremendous air, water, and soil benefits, conserve biodiversity for species habitat, and create jobs and economic recovery.
Submitted by Diane Szoller, Climate Scorecard Canada Country Manager.