Climate Change

Manitoba may have just a handful of polar bears by 2035, as the world's leading experts on the iconic Arctic species believe the bears that summer around Churchill are doomed.

The Western Hudson Bay subpopulation of polar bears, estimated at 935 animals in 2004, is expected to decline over the next 25 to 30 years to the point where there are not enough bears to sustain a breeding population, predicts University of Alberta biologist Ian Stirling, who's been studying polar bears for 37 years.

The increasing length of the ice-free season on Hudson Bay will soon reach a tipping point where 20 to 30 per cent of Manitoba's polar bears will begin dying off every year, according to a mathematical analysis released two weeks ago by Stirling's colleague, University of Alberta biologist Andrew Derocher, who's studied polar bears for 28 years.

The predictions mean the province that calls itself the polar bear capital of the world may no longer be able to count the iconic Arctic animal as a resident species within a generation.

The eventual extirpation of polar bears from Manitoba would have disastrous effects on Churchill's ecotourism business as well as the province's efforts to portray itself as a leader in conservation.

"We can say with a very great deal of confidence, sadly, the Western Hudson Bay population will be non-viable within 25 or 30 years," Stirling said in an interview, referring to periodic polar bear counts, an observed decline in the average weight of polar bears, a decline in the weight and number of polar bear cubs and the increasing length of the ice-free period on Hudson Bay.

Unlike bears in the high Arctic, the Western Hudson Bay population spends its summers on land, denning in and around Wapusk National Park east of Churchill. Since almost all of the bears' calories come from seals -- which are only hunted on sea ice -- a longer ice-free period means less hunting and less body mass.

The average polar bear eats 43 ringed seals a year, Stirling said. Missing out on only two of those meals every year is enough to cause a polar bear's body weight to decline to the point where females produce underweight cubs or no cubs at all.

A preliminary estimate of the Western Hudson Bay polar bear population prepared in 2009 suggested there are only 635 bears around Churchill, a disturbingly low number the biologists are dismissing as incorrect. A full count using the same methodology as the 2004 estimate will be conducted later this year, Stirling said.

But an analysis conducted by Derocher and two mathematicians suggests Manitoba's polar bear population will decline rapidly once Hudson Bay's ice-free period gets to the point where bears wind up with too little food to produce viable offspring -- let alone survive meal-free summers on land.

The notion that polar bears can turn to alternate food sources is preposterous, said Stirling, noting the species has evolved to subsist on seals. Claims by Inuit that polar bears are increasing in number are spurious because the animals are merely turning to human settlements in attempts to find food, he added.

The Western Hudson Bay population will decline even with no hunting and worldwide reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions, Stirling said.

"Even if we had a magic wand to wave around or could touch a magic button, it's like trying to turn a supertanker around," Stirling said of climate change. "Even if we went back to 1970 greenhouse-gas levels, it will be years before we see a difference."

But Robert Buchanan, president and CEO of educational organization Polar Bears International, cautioned it would be fatal to give up on polar bears, which he describes as a "sentinel species" that draws attention to the plight of the entire Arctic ecosystem.

Canada, which has 65 per cent of the world's estimated 15,000 to 25,000 polar bears, has the potential to lead the world in the fight against climate change, he said.

"We have to provide hope," he said. "If Canada doesn't get it, then the rest of the world won't get it."

Manitoba declared polar bears a threatened species in 2008. Derocher and other biologists are urging Canada to follow suit this year.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 7, 2010 A3

Climate scientists have projected human-induced global warming would make spring arrive earlier than normal, and it is -- by about 10 days so far. And while most people are only too happy to say goodbye to winter, "spring creep" is posing a significant threat to plants and animals across the country.

I recently moderated a press conference with scientists who are studying the effects of spring creep. Jake Weltzin, the executive director of the U.S.A. National Phenology Network and an ecologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, found an earlier spring creates "mismatches" when some plants bud earlier and the animals that depend on them have not adjusted their internal clocks.

For example, bees might fly to an area that provides habitat for plants they historically pollinate only to find those plants already have bloomed.

Spring creep also may be taking a toll on North American caribou herds. Last year, University of Alberta researchers published a study on herd decline. They know pregnant caribou need to eat new leaves when they are the most nutritious. But the leaves are now coming out earlier, and the caribou's migration schedule has not changed, so the herds are arriving after the leaves are past their peak. This may partly explain the declining numbers of caribou.

Weltzin says many insects, including caterpillars, are emerging earlier, too, but some birds have maintained their traditional migratory schedule. As a result, birds are arriving after the insects have metamorphosed into butterflies or other inedible forms.

Sometimes these spring mismatches can be fatal. In a number of states, caterpillars, which in the past were eaten by migratory birds, are now falling to the ground before the birds show up.

That is not only bad news for the birds. A recent study by a scientist in Kentucky found thousands of grazing pregnant mares in the Ohio River Valley were ingesting the caterpillars, which causes them to abort their fetuses.

Other scientists are finding that spring creep is affecting vegetation in New England. Charles Davis, an assistant professor of evolutionary biology at Harvard University, together with researchers at Boston University, discovered that in Concord, Mass., climate change is especially harmful to certain groups of native plants linked by common ancestry.

Using data taken by Henry David Thoreau, Davis and his colleagues published a study in 2008 that found native plants that have maintained their historic flowering schedule tend to be the "losers." These groups include many of the area's most "charismatic" wildflowers: orchids, roses, lilies and dogwoods. Dr. Davis said about 30 per cent of the native species Thoreau documented in the 1850s are extinct in the area. Another 30 per cent are so scarce they likely will disappear.

Davis and his co-authors published a followup study in January that found invasive plants that flower earlier with the early arrival of spring are, by and large, the "winners." Davis believes the fact they can adjust their flowering time to changing temperatures may give them an edge, allowing them to flourish and spread at the expense of native plants.

These findings are significant given that damages from invasive species total more than $100 billion a year.

Spring creep also has a direct link to forest fires. Another scientist at our press event, Anthony Westerling, published a paper in 2006 showing rising temperatures combined with early snowmelt are contributing to a dramatic increase in the number and size of forest fires in Western states.

Westerling, an assistant professor of environmental engineering and geography at the University of California-Merced, explained spring creep means a longer summer season and drier vegetation, which provides a more flammable fuel supply.

Westerling found there are now about 10 times more large fires in the northern Rockies than there were in the 1970s and early 1980s, and today's fires burn 30 times more acreage than they did decades ago. This increase was so pronounced, he said, because there were very few large fires prior to the mid-1980s.

These are just some of a number of examples of how global warming emissions already are causing significant changes in our environment. Some species are adapting to these changes, but a significant number of others are not, and that spells trouble. According to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a three-degree to seven-degree Fahrenheit increase in the average global temperature could result in the loss of as much as a third of the world's species.

If we exceed seven degrees Fahrenheit warming, more than half of all species could become extinct.

So what can we do about this problem? Unfortunately, even if we were able to stop all global warming emissions today, the climate would still continue to change because carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases remain in the atmosphere for decades. But we can avoid the worst potential consequences of climate change by dramatically reducing our emissions. It's time to spring into action, the earlier the better.

Melanie Fitzpatrick is a climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

-- McClatchy-Tribune Services

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 11, 2010 A10

Once again the embarrassing numbers are out showing how awful Manitoba’s record is in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Embarrassing may not describe things aptly enough; abysmal and horrendous is much better.

As if a risky taxpayer-funded deal for a new football stadium and running five more years of deficit budgets isn’t bad enough, this government is a complete failure on the environment.

Environment Canada has just released its annual National Inventory Report, a 582-page document detailing and accounting for the country’s GHG emissions. It shows in 2008 — the most recent data available — Manitoba’s emissions climbed to an all-time high of 21.9 megatonnes (Mt). That’s up almost a percentage point over the previous year and roughly 25% above the Kyoto target of 6% below 1990 levels, which the province has pledged in law to reach by 2012.

We need to drop our annual emissions by 4.4 Mt to reach the goal. That’s equivalent to taking 841,300 vehicles off the road in a province where, according to MPI, there are only 749,522 vehicles.

We’ve come to expect this news every spring.

Every year we’re told to expect better numbers next year. It’s time the province outright said they’ve failed miserably reducing emissions. They need to find a whole new strategy. In previous years, former environment minister Jim Rondeau tried to cleverly and colourfully spin the bad numbers.

“We found all the things that would be causing the issues and started to address the increases. I see (emissions) trending downwards now,” he told the Sun in June 2008. And last year he said “there’s been a delay in implementing the programs and seeing the results.” Well that’s getting closer to the truth. This year, it sounds like someone down on Broadway actually cares.

“We’re going to have to find ways to get big reductions. That’s going to be difficult and expensive and in the current environment that’s going to a challenge too,” current minister Bill Blaikie said.

Obviously the government needs a swift kick in the behind. But so do Manitobans.

Curt Hull, project co-ordinator with Climate Change Connection, a provincial environmental group is right when blames all of us as well. He says Manitobans are not making the smart choices they must, like taking public or alternate transportation instead of driving gas-guzzling SUVs.

The NDP have been out to lunch on creating an effective plan to deal with this, no doubt about it.

But it’s like the crime rate.

Everyone needs to contribute

Don’t jump in your car so much, walk instead. Stop being so lazy. Or take a bus.

Start now or you’re being as inept as the NDP.

— Paul Rutherford

LOCAL and international films with environmental themes will get showcased this weekend in Winnipeg's first Reel Green Film Festival, March 12-13 at the Red River College Princess Street Campus downtown.

Screenings begin Friday at 7 p.m. with a program of films including local animator Cordell Barker's short Runaway and the feature documentary No Impact Man about a family in Manhattan attempting to live for a year without leaving a carbon footprint.

All day Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., the fest hosts panel discussions with documentarians including Ian Mauro, the maker of the genetic seeds exposé Seeds of Change. The fest also includes a selection of free films including Fat Lake: How too much of a good thing is hurting Lake Winnipeg, by Lynsay Perkins. Mauro will also present a clip from the upcoming new collaboration with Zacharias Kunuk (Atanarjuat The Fast Runner) about Inuit observations on climate change.

"We are delighted to highlight this great local work," says fest co-ordinator Lise Smith. "It really puts Manitoba on the map for filmmaking in the environmental genre."

Tickets are $10 for the Friday program, $12 for the Saturday program or $20 for a festival pass.

For more ticket info, log onto http://mbeconetwork.org/reel-green-film-festival/

About a month ago I covered a newser at Fort Whyte Centre featuring the University of Manitoba’s David Barber and his work in Canada’s north documenting global warming. Here’s the story.

Since then I’ve ended up on a couple of email lists decrying the work of Barber and other scientists who fear the impact of climate change is a lot more rapid than first thought.

The most recent comes from Peter Salonius of New Brunswick who cites former television meteorologist Anthony Watts who claims melting Arctic ice may have more to do with wind than warming.

We’ve already heard a lot about climate change and its impact on polar bears; ice is forming later on Hudson Bay and delaying when the bears head out on the ice to hunt seals.

What hasn’t been talked about much, at least in southern media, is the possible impact of climate change on the barren-land caribou.

A year ago I did a piece on the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq caribou herds that range in Nunavut, the Northwest Territories and northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Experts say the Beverly herd appears to have almost disappeared – it once numbered in the thousands – and the same fate could happen to the Qamanirjuaq herd.

"The NWT government has conducted reconnaissance surveys on the Beverly calving ground for the past three years, finding fewer and fewer animals," the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board (BQCMB) says in a recent release.

"In June 2009, less than 100 adult caribou were counted on the calving ground during the peak of the calving period, compared to 5,737 animals counted using comparable methods in 1994."

Manitoban Ross Thompson is BQCMB secretary-treasurer and the board is supported by the Manitoba government. The board recently met in Saskatoon.

The current size of the Beverly herd is not known, the BQCMB adds. It says reconnaissance surveys are not population surveys – they only provide a snapshot of some of the animals on the calving ground during the June calving period. In 1994, when surveys required to calculate a population estimate were last done, the herd numbered around 276,000.

"These recent calving ground surveys suggest that the Beverly herd has suffered a major population decline," the board says. "The causes are likely a mix of natural and human-caused factors. These include the natural caribou population cycle, diseases, changes in habitat (including winter range lost to forest fires), parasites, and predation. Limited satellite-collar data indicate that some cows that had previously calved on the Beverly calving ground have shifted to the Ahiak calving ground in recent years. The Beverly herd may also have been affected by human-caused activities, including climate change, mineral exploration and development, and hunter harvest.

"The BQCMB urges everyone – governments, companies and individuals alike – to do everything possible to take pressure off the Beverly herd right away. The herd will need the most favourable conditions over many years for its numbers to increase again."

Why the numbers have to increase is simple: Many people who live in Canada’s north hunt caribou to feed their families.

The BQCMB says its next step is for members to visit caribou-range communities to talk with residents about what’s happening.

The idea is to collect more information from the people who live in the north about what should be done.

The BQCMB will write up its findings and recommendations to release in the fall of 2011.

More information about the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herds.

I saw Gary Doer recently in Copenhagen, waiting his turn to speak with a high-ranking official of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency at a social event we were co-hosting during the UN climate summit.

As the new Canadian ambassador to the U.S., this is exactly the kind of thing Doer should be doing: networking and forming relationships with American officials. But, as Doer embraces the Harper government's instructions to defend the tarsands industry, he is undermining his green legacy as premier of Manitoba and, worse, undermining the interests of his home province in years to come.

A few years ago, Business Week magazine named then-premier Doer as one of the top 20 leaders in the world taking action on global warming. He took the province into the Western Climate Initiative, a partnership with California and several other states and provinces to develop a regional system to control large polluters, doing so, in his words, "in the absence of clear federal leadership." At the time, he stated Manitoba shared a vision with California.

Today, however, Ambassador Doer is enthusiastically selling Americans on the do-nothing approach of the federal Conservatives on climate change, and is the face of the tarsands industry's fight against U.S. states, led by California, that want to reduce the carbon content of transportation fuels. His sales job is wrapped up in the rhetoric of "harmonizing" with the U.S., but in reality everyone knows Ottawa is still doing nothing to rein in large polluters, with the result our emissions keep going up instead of down.

Manitoba faces a triple whammy from the climate games the Harper government is playing, and that Ambassador Doer is supporting in his U.S. lobbying. The most obvious one is endangering young Manitobans through the deterioration of our atmosphere, but two other negative impacts will unfold on the course we are currently on.

First, at some point, Canada will be forced to place an absolute cap on global warming emissions -- one that shrinks over time. Under such a cap, if any one industry does not make its fair share of pollution cuts, then others under the cap must do more to compensate. During the Copenhagen climate summit, the CBC obtained secret cabinet documents showing the Conservatives are considering a plan to let the tarsands industry more than triple its global warming emissions, which would force industries elsewhere -- including Manitoba -- to shoulder the tarsands burden over and above the cuts they need to make anyway.

Second, a growing tarsands industry is turning Canada's currency into a petrodollar that rises and falls along with the price of oil. With oil giants themselves admitting we are heading into world-wide global oil scarcity, the price of oil is expected to go through the roof, taking our dollar with it.

This will have the impact of making Canadian-made goods more expensive in international markets, hurting exporting industries in Manitoba and elsewhere.

When you accept the job as Canadian ambassador, you accept being told what to do and say by Ottawa, regardless of your personal beliefs. Gary Doer knew this going into the role, which is in large part why the choice of an NDP premier by a Conservative government raised eyebrows across the country. But, there could be no illusions where the Harper government stood on global warming at the time of the job offer, nor any doubt Doer would be heavily involved in the issue in the U.S. after the election of Barack Obama as president.

It is sad to lose Gary Doer to the tarsands and to the Harper government's hostility to the emergence of the clean energy economy. vDefending the interests of Manitoba, however, is the job of the government of Manitoba and the pathway to do this is clear.

Continued inaction from Ottawa means regional partnerships like the Western Climate Initiative are as important as ever. Manitoba should also band together with other progressive provinces to push back on federal efforts to grow tarsands pollution at the expense of others and to engage in a national debate about energy, currency rates and prosperity in the emerging low carbon economy.

Matt Price is policy director for Environmental Defence, a charity dedicated to protecting the environment and human health. www.environmentaldefence.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 11, 2010 A11

TORONTO, Feb. 8 /CNW/ - Today international experts are urging all governments in Canada to not to neglect the role of 'natural solutions' to the climate change crisis. As stated in an Open Letter to the First Ministers released today:

"We are writing you today to seriously consider expanding and strengthening your respective protected areas systems. Without taking such steps you risk exacerbating the problem of climate change. Right now Canada has just under 10% of its land base protected. We urge you to significantly increase this amount as part of your respective climate change strategies."

"Without protected areas, the challenges would be even greater, and their strengthening will yield one of the most powerful solutions to the climate crisis," said Nigel Dudley, ecologist and industrial fellow at the University of Queensland. Protected areas help prevent the loss of carbon that is already present in vegetation, peat, and soils. They also help society cope with climate change impacts by maintaining essential services upon which people depend.

The experts, in Toronto for one day only, are promoting the findings of their new report called Natural Solutions: protected areas helping people cope with climate change. The report was authored by a team of trained ecologists, economists, and other experts.

"In the rush for 'new' solutions to climate change, we are in danger of neglecting a proven alternative," says Nik Lopoukhine, formerly Director General Parks Canada, a Canadian and Chair of the World Commission on Protected Areas. "Protected areas are an investment which societies have made for a millennia, using traditional approaches which have proven their potential and effectiveness in modern times," added Lopoukhine.

"Actually, expanding protected area coverage and involving indigenous and local communities in these efforts could be one of the most effective ways to reinforce nature and peoples resilience to climate change" said The Nature Conservancy's Trevor Sandwith, a co-author from South Africa, who is also Deputy Chair of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas.

With 2010 being the International Year of Biodiversity, maintaining and expanding protected areas needs to be recognized as a powerful tool against climate change and should be a component of national and sub-national climate change strategies. Protected areas play a major role in reducing climate changing carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere. In Canada, over 4 billion tons of carbon dioxide is sequestered in 39 national parks, estimated to be worth $39-87 billion in carbon credits. Two provinces have recently made significant commitments to protect the massive carbon stores of the Boreal Forest.

"We certainly want to encourage full implementation of Premier McGuinty's global leading announcement from July 2008 to permanently protect more than half of its northern Boreal Forest with local indigenous communities," added Lopoukhine. The Premier highlighted the important role protecting these natural carbon sinks have in helping to stave off the worst impacts of climate change. Ontario's Boreal Forest including the Hudson Bay Lowlands is one of the richest carbon reserves in the world.

The Natural Solutions report was commissioned by the IUCN WCPA and funded and supported by The Nature Conservancy, the United Nations Development Programme, Wildlife Conservation Society, the World Bank and WWF. It can be downloaded at: http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/natural_solutions.pdf

A summary in French, English and Spanish is also available.

For further information: or to set up interviews with the authors, please contact: Anna Baggio, (416) 453-3285 mobile

The wolverine, a predator renowned for its strength and tenacious character, may be slowly melting away along with the snowpack upon which it lives.

Research shows wolverine numbers are falling across North America. Their decline has been linked to less snow settling as a result of climate change.

The study is the first to show a decline in the abundance of any land species due to vanishing snowpack.

Details of the wolverine's decline are published in Population Ecology.

(Original news release from November 23, 2009)

PRIOR LAKE, Minn. – Nearly 400 Native leaders, scholars, elders and Tribal College students from across the country, joined by scientists from the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), came together at a watershed gathering, the Native Peoples Native Homelands Climate Change Workshop II, to formulate a collective response to the far-reaching impacts of climate change on Native lands and communities.

The Climate Change Workshop, held November 18-21 at the Mystic Lake Casino & Hotel in Prior Lake, Minnesota, was designed to build on and enrich the recently released 2009 U.S. National Climate Change Assessment. The first Native Peoples Native Homelands Climate Change Workshop was held in 1998 in Albuquerque, NM, and the report from that workshop, Circles of Wisdom, was later included in the first National Climate Change Assessment issued that year.

“Climate change impacts Native peoples first and foremost,” said workshop Co-Chair, Winona LaDuke, Executive Director of Honor the Earth. “In Alaska, some villages are literally falling into the ocean, while severe drought in the Southwest is scorching scarce grasslands and forests. In the Pacific Northwest, salmon runs have been decimated. Vector borne diseases are spreading, and traditional foods and medicines are disappearing in Native territories across the country.”

Dr. Daniel R. Wildcat, workshop Co-Chair and Director of Haskell Indian Nations University’s Environmental Research Studies Center said, “Global warming scenarios point to disproportionate and increased impacts on Native peoples due to their unique relationship to land, the prevalence of subsistence land-based economies, and the deep cultural and spiritual significance of their ties to the land.”

As a follow-up to the White House Tribal Summit convened in November, the White House sent three representatives from the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) to the Workshop. The CEQ held a “listening session” to hear the direct experiences of Native peoples disproportionately suffering the adverse effects of climate change. Others offered solutions, including the development of reservation-based renewable energy, efficient and sustainable housing, and Indigenous food production, and urged a federal response through the creation of adaptation policies.

At its conclusion, participants issued a milestone document, the Mystic Lake Declaration (attached), to offer solutions that can help Tribal communities and policy makers form plans to address climate change impacts that threaten the traditional cultures and life ways of Indigenous peoples. The Declaration will be taken to Copenhagen for presentation at the United Nations Climate Change Conference.

Sponsored by NASA’s Tribal College and University Program, the workshop was held in collaboration with the nation's 36 tribally-controlled colleges and universities and the American Indian Higher Education Consortium. Because the median age in Indian Country is 18, there is an urgent need to provide curriculum and green jobs training to restore Native economies. Workshop partners included Honor the Earth, Haskell Indian Nations University, Indigenous Environmental Network, Intertribal Council On Utility Policy, the National Indian Gaming Association, and NOAA.

Presenters included an impressive cross-section of Native experts and leaders from across the nation including Billy Frank, Jr., Chairman of the Northwest Indian Fish Commission; Inupiat whaling captain Eugene Brower; Cheyenne Arapaho Tribal College President Henrietta Mann, Ph.D.; Lakota spiritual leader Chief Arvol Looking Horse; Alan Parker, Director of the Northwest Indian Applied Research Institute at The Evergreen State College; Debra Harry, Executive Director of Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism; Susan Masten, President, Women Empowering Women for Indian Nations; Katsi Cook, Mohawk midwife and Executive Director of Woman is the First Environment Collaborative; Patrick Spears, President of the Intertribal Council On Utility Policy; and Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network.

Tribal governments, Indigenous organizations, individuals, and others may read and sign on to the Declaration by going to www.nativepeoplesnativehomelands.org

Full bios and photos are available for keynote speakers and presenters at:
www.nativepeoplesnativehomelands.org/ and www.honorearth.org

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COPENHAGEN — The Bella Center was overflowing with incomprehensible acronyms this week, which often seems to obscure the important decisions under consideration.

There has been lots of talk of M.R.V. — that is, “Measurable Reportable and Verifiable,” a mantra used to describe the type of cuts and allocations of funding that all parties are demanding of each other — and from the A.O.S.I.S., or the Alliance of Small Island States.

But the worst acronym may well be L.U.L.U.C.F. (Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry) — and it hides a crucial issue.

The term refers to an agreement that covers forestry for developed countries that have pledged to reduce their emissions under the Kyoto Protocol – including some of world’s major logging countries, from New Zealand, Finland, Canada to Australia and Austria.

During the first commitment period of the Kyoto protocol, those reductions were voluntary. But after 2012, they may well be binding. And, as the developed countries have unveiled their plans for forestry at the Copenhagen talks, advocates have spied what they call a lot of “creative accounting,” according to Peg Putt, of the Wilderness Society of Australia.

As with any plan to reduce emissions, one key question is to establish a baseline. Under the Kyoto protocol, the baseline for factory emissions from industrialized countries was set at 1990. Now, a number of logging countries have proposed that the baseline for reduction should be set relative to the amount of logging projected to occur in the future, if the logging industry were allowed to grow as it is now.

In a deft bit of doublespeak, the countries call this method “a forward looking baseline.”

Environmental groups concerned about emissions from forestry call it “the logging loophole.” The result of this accounting strategy is that countries like New Zealand, Sweden, Finland and Austria would not have to reduce logging – and its emissions – nearly so much as other industries.

Indeed, with the loophole, New Zealand would actually get to increase its emissions 17 percent by 188 percent, according to calculations by the Climate Action Network. Switzerland and Norway and possibly France, have agreed to use a past baseline.

Ironically, especially in Europe, a lot of the new forest cutting will be used to provide wood for bioenergy. But isn’t that a good way to move away from fossil fuels?

Well, that depends, said Chris Henschel of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society and chair of the Climate Action Network’s working group on forestry.

“If you don’t do proper accounting – with the proper price for carbon – it’s hard to know,” he said. “With the loophole, the real emissions reductions are less than they say. You’re basically allowing them to have a second set of books.”