Last year's wildfires in Canada released more carbon than in many other countries | WTAQ News Talk | 97.5 FM · 1360 AM

By Gloria Dickie

(Reuters) – Wildfires that raged through Canada's forests last year released more greenhouse gases than some of the world's highest-emitting countries, a study found on Wednesday, challenging national emissions budgets that rely on forests as carbon stores.

According to the study published in the journal Nature, carbon emissions from last year's forest fires, at 647 megatons, exceeded those of seven of the top 10 national emitters in 2022, including Germany, Japan and Russia.

Only China, India and the United States emitted more carbon dioxide during this period. If Canada were ranked by country in terms of forest fires, it would be the fourth largest emitter in the world.

Typical emissions from Canadian wildfires over the past decade have ranged from 29 to 121 megatonnes. But climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, is leading to drier and hotter conditions, leading to more extreme wildfires. The 2023 fires burned 15 million hectares (37 million acres) across Canada, or about 4% of the country's forests.

The findings heighten concerns that our planet's forests rely on long-term carbon sinks for industrial emissions, while fires could actually exacerbate the problem.

The concern is that the global carbon budget, the estimated amount of greenhouse gases the world can continue to emit while limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, is based on inaccurate calculations.

“If our goal is to limit the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, we need to make adjustments to how much carbon we are allowed to emit through our economy, relative to how much carbon is or is not absorbed by forests,” said study author Brendan Byrne, an atmospheric scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The unusually high temperatures Canada experienced in 2023 are expected to become the norm by the 2050s, according to the study. This will likely lead to severe fires in the 347 million hectares (857 million acres) of forest lands that Canada relies on for carbon storage.

The increasing severity of wildfires and the carbon they release are not taken into account in Canada's annual greenhouse gas emissions balance.

According to the country's national climate strategy for 2021, carbon is counted when it is emitted from human sources, such as industrial activities, but not when there are natural disturbances to forests, such as insect infestations or wildfires.

“The atmosphere is experiencing an increase in this carbon no matter how we set up our accounting system,” Byrne said.

(Reporting by Gloria Dickie; Editing by Barbara Lewis)