Op Ed - Net Zero

From the desk of the Executive Director:

Net Zero Isn’t Neutral: Boreal Conversion for Food in the NWT Deserves a Different Carbon Lens

Canada’s commitment to net zero has reshaped how we think about land, food, and climate. That’s a good thing. But when net zero is applied as a blunt instrument—without place-based context—it can lead us to conclusions that are technically tidy and practically wrong.

This becomes very evident in discussions about converting small areas of boreal forest to farmland in the Northwest Territories (NWT).  As I connect with government staff, scientists, researchers and partners on food security and food sovereignty projects through our organization, I am regularly having to defend land conversion to net zero experts. I am not saying everyone takes this binary approach but for those that do – it is clear that the NWT feeding ourselves  is the second priority.

If the assumption holds true that the total carbon cost of limited boreal conversion for local food production is lower than the ongoing carbon cost of importing food from southern Canada then a strict net zero framing becomes a barrier, not a solution.

The Hidden Carbon of “Doing Nothing”

Food in the NWT does not magically appear on store shelves. It is trucked, flown, barged, stored, refrigerated, and often wasted after long journeys that stretch thousands of kilometres.

Those emissions are:

• Continuous, year after year

• Largely invisible in land-use accounting

• Externalized, occurring far from the communities that bear the food insecurity

By contrast, land-use emissions from boreal conversion are:

• Finite—a one-time pulse rather than a perpetual flow

• Measurable and geographically specific

• Potentially mitigable through careful site selection, scale limits, and soil management

A net zero framework tends to treat these two realities as equivalent. They are not.

Net Zero Misses the Time Dimension

Net zero accounting often collapses time into a single ledger. A tonne emitted today is treated the same as a tonne emitted annually for decades.

But in the North, time matters.

A one-time release of carbon from converting a small, carefully chosen parcel of boreal land—paired with decades of reduced food transport emissions—may result in lower cumulative emissions over time.

When climate accounting ignores this temporal trade-off, it favours the status quo, even when the status quo is more carbon-intensive in the long run.

Boreal Forest Is Not Monolithic

Not all boreal landscapes are equal in carbon density, ecological sensitivity, or cultural value. Northern land-use decisions are already guided by:

• Indigenous land stewardship and consent

• Permafrost and soil science

• Wildlife corridors and watershed protection

• Extremely limited suitable agricultural land

The conversation is not about large-scale clearing. It is about surgical, community-led, climate-informed decisions in regions where arable land is already scarce.

A net zero lens that treats every hectare the same discourages nuance—and undermines northern food sovereignty.

Food Security Is a Climate Strategy

Local food production in the NWT is not a lifestyle choice. It is infrastructure.

When northern communities produce more of their own food, they:

• Reduce reliance on fragile southern supply chains

• Lower transportation emissions

• Increase resilience to climate-driven disruptions

• Keep economic and ecological value local

Climate policy that ignores food security outcomes risks optimizing carbon math while destabilizing real systems.

Toward a Smarter Climate Framework

This is not an argument against net zero. It is an argument against net zero without context.

What’s needed instead:

• Life-cycle carbon accounting that includes transport and storage

• Cumulative emissions analysis over decades, not snapshots

• Place-based policy tools for northern and remote regions

• Recognition that sometimes doing something locally emits less carbon than outsourcing emissions elsewhere

If the goal is genuinely lower emissions—not just cleaner spreadsheets—then we must be willing to ask harder questions about where food comes from, how emissions are counted, and who bears the cost of inaction.

r.