No clear direction on forests from Climate Action Team recommendations in British Columbia

British Columbia's Climate Action Team has just released its report to the Premier on policies that can be used to meet the province's greenhouse gas reduction target of 33% from 2007 levels by 2020.

The report includes recommendations for carbon pricing, public engagement, transportation, buildings, energy, industry, communities, agriculture, and waste. Rather than making policy recommendations for the forest sector, the CAT recommended an additional process for this:

"Include forests, land use, the forest-product sector, bioenergy and other renewable wood-derived bio-products in the government’s climate action strategy. This should be done with the involvement of stakeholders in a full assessment of mitigation options in terms of greenhouse gas benefits, biodiversity values and other co-benefits."

It's interesting to me that the discussion of how to include forests within cap-and-trade frameworks and offset systems is going relatively slowly. It appears that regulators are not quite sure yet how to deal with the issue. Ontario's Northern Boreal protection announcement remains the most substantive policy approach in the country.

Resources
Climate Action Team report to the Premier
Media release from the Climate Action Team
More information on the Climate Change Secretariat's website