PCF Action Group
Research - Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
PCF Action Group Employees
PCF Action Group Details
Permafrost is thawing at a rate unprecedented in modern times, undermining infrastructure and turbocharging global warming. As long-frozen organic material thaws, degrades and decomposes, leading scientists estimate that the resulting carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from Canadian permafrost alone may be equivalent to all of Canada's anthropogenic emissions – and these contributions are rising. There is a critical gap in responding to this problem. Northerners are being forced to adapt locally to the thawing and subsiding of ground that was once solid. Scientists and policymakers are working to better calculate and mitigate emissions on a national and global scale. But two crucial questions demand attention: First, what global or local solutions might help keep permafrost frozen to rein in emissions and reduce impacts? Second, what solutions might restore the permafrost region's role as a carbon sink rather than an expanding source of greenhouse gases? The PCF Action Group is a private project, organized by the Canadian Permafrost Association and the Institute for Breakthrough Energy Technologies Ltd (IBET), and supported by Environment and Climate Change Canada. The Permafrost Carbon Feedback Action Group, comprising technical, financial, and policy experts, is working to create a 'Roadmap', investigating the utility and costs of options for emission reduction and mitigation, and sharing those findings in the scientific and policy communities. The Action Group will convene a series of invitation-only Dialogues in early 2021, including experts in science and technology and representatives of key circumpolar constituencies, including indigenous peoples, and generating this Roadmap in the form of a publicly available summary for research organizations and policymakers, to be made available in the Spring of 2021.For information: Contact Nancy Wright, Executive Director, PCFActionGroup@gmail.comhttps://cascadeinstitute.org/research/pcf-dialogues/
