Facing the Backdraft

Climate analyst Barry Saxifrage explains how the CO2 from fires is adding significantly to greenhouse gas accumulation. His charts show the dramatic increase in Canadian wildfires:

"Wildfire is now incinerating four times more forest carbon than during the 1990s. In addition to the surging immediate threats of choking smoke, wanton destruction and disrupted lives, rising wildfire is also pumping billions of tonnes of forest carbon into our atmosphere, intensifying long-term climate breakdown. ... It is piling up in an ever-thickening blanket in our atmosphere that will overheat generations to come. The extra heat being trapped by humanity's CO2 now equals the explosions of 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs every day. And rising. ...

Wildfire emissions totalled 30 million tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2) [in 1990]. The much taller bar on teh far right shows that this year's wildfires have already burned massive amounts of forest. Emissions are around 500 MtCO2 so far, with many weeks of fire season still ahead. ... It is tempting to think that this current level of wildfire is our 'new normal.' But it's going to keep getting worse until we take our foot off the wildfire accelerator. ... Levels will keep rising until we stop the primary source of them, fossil fuel burning. ... 'It ain't rocket science -- when it's hotter and drier fires burn more easily and more explosively.' ... Burning fossil fuels burns Canada's forests."

He added green bars to the graph to show how much forests used to act as a carbon sink. It was enough to recapture the additional CO2 emitted by fires and more. 

Fires are a huge source of CO2 that didn't exist like this before. Their "emissions now average more than all the emissions from Canadian cars, trucks, ships, planes, buildings and electricity generation--combined" even rivalling the biggest impact to forest, logging.

"Overall, Canada's managed forest has lost four billion tonnes of CO2 since 1990. All that CO2 was stored in teh forest. Now it's up in the atmosphere. These forest carbon losses are new. ... This one-two punch of more CO2 emitted by wildfire and less of it being removed by post-fire recovery is accelerating the climate impact. ... The big tipping point was 2002. In that year, and every year since, Canada's managed forest has lost carbon to the atmosphere. That's 22 straight years of annual CO2 emissions. This clearly isn't a problem caused by a few freak years. It's an every-year crisis. ... This accelerating flood of CO2 pouring out of Canada's managed forest now dwarfs the fossil fuel emissions of most nations."

"Europeans have collectively reduced their climate pollution by 36% since 1990 ... using climate policies that reduced emissions across every sector in their economies. ... Since they enacted [UK's Climate Change Act of 2008], the British have reduced their emissions by 40%."

Unfortunately, Carney might not be the guy who will curb climate change. Mark Bourrie wrote about some concerns with his trajectory, calling him "a tree hugger with a chainsaw": 

"As soon as he was sworn in, Carney stripped away Poilievre's best slogan by killing the retail carbon tax in a stunt that looked a lot like Trump's executive-order photo ops. ... Environmentalists are worried about Carney's push for east-west trade infrastructure, which might include petroleum pipelines; Indigenous leaders fear that infrastructure might be bulldozed through their territory. ... Carney pledged to increase Canada's military spending to 5% of GDP by 2035 ... Tanks or climate change research? Clean water for Indigenous communities or warships?"

Time will tell.