FPAC welcomes federal government’s launch of net-zero advisory body

The Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC) welcomes the federal government’s launch of an advisory body to push the country’s goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

“Canada’s forest sector was one of the few industries that supported the Kyoto Protocol,” FPAC president and CEO Derek Nighbor said. “We were an early adopter of Paris Agreement commitments, and we will be there again to help power the drive to a net-zero carbon Canadian economy by 2050.”

Environment and Climate Change Minister Jonathan Wilkinson made the announcement yesterday of the government’s launch of a non-partisan group of 14 experts to help develop a pathway to achieve net-zero carbon emissions.

FPAC believes Canada can go beyond net-zero by:

• Sequestering carbon and reducing land-based emissions through climate smart forestry and sustainably managing forests in the face of worsening pest, drought, and catastrophic fire risks.
• Locking carbon into long-lived wood products and innovative wood building construction.
• Building on our successful track record of reducing greenhouse gas emissions at our mills. Carbon emissions at Canadian forest product mills have been reduced by nearly 70 per cent since the early 1990s and we can do more.
• Using what would otherwise be wood waste to further green our operations and providing lower-carbon materials and biofuels to help other industries decarbonize.

“We look forward to supporting the work of the net-zero advisory board so we can unlock both the environmental and economic potential of our sector, its people, and forestry communities across the country,” Nighbor said.