Global Climate Change: Canadian Policy and the Role of Terrestrial Ecosystems

This paper provides an overview of Canadian climate change policy. It is argued that voluntary action will contribute little to climate change mitigation and that forest management strategies can, at most, contribute some 7.5 percent of Canada's required Kyoto CO2-emissions reduction target. To do so requires tree-planting subsidies, which are inefficient locally and globally. In the arena of land-use change and forest strategies, Kyoto's Clean Development Mechanism offers a more efficient alternative to domestic strategies.