Economics of fossil fuel substitution and wood product sinks when trees are planted to sequester carbon on agricultural lands in western Canada

To meet its international commitment to reduce CO2 output by 7% from the 19 90 level by 2012, Canada will rely to some extent on terrestrial carbon upt ake, particularly afforestation of marginal agricultural land. The economic s of afforestation is examined for northeastern British Columbia and all of Alberta, with harvested wood used either as a replacement for coal in ener gy production or as a wood-product sink. Some 7 + 10(6) ha of marginal agri cultural land are identified, but very little could reasonably be afforeste d if wood is used as a substitute for coal. If C is stored in wood products , nearly one third of the land might reasonably be planted to trees; if sim ilar results hold for the rest of Canada, afforestation can be included in the policy arsenal. Before that can be done, however, some serious issues n eed to be resolved, including problems associated with the mechanism used t o transfer land out of agriculture into plantation forest.