The Canadian government’s new emissions targets, which were formally submitted to the United Nations this week, reinforced the country’s forest-sized blind spots in its climate policy. Despite growing calls internationally for safeguarding climate-critical forests and reining in forestry sector emissions, Canada has opted for a different rulebook for the logging industry. Not only does this rulebook grant a free pass to one of Canada’s most significant sources of emissions, but, in treating forest emissions as a form of climate change “extra credit” rather than its own imperative, Canada is opening a floodgate of fossil fuel loopholes. …Despite the forest’s climate importance and Canada’s commitment to natural climate solutions, Canada in recent years has had the world’s third-highest intact forest landscape loss, behind only Russia and Brazil, and among the highest tree loss per capita.