<
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/06/27/business/canada-wildfire-forest-carbon-offset-risks/>
"Canada’s explosive wildfire season has already pumped millions of tons of
carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Some of that carbon is coming from
vegetation burned at a carbon offset project, highlighting the fragility of a
tool the world is relying on to fight catastrophic climate change.
With Canada facing what’s on track to be its worst wildfire season on record —
and climate change fueling ever more destructive blazes — climate experts and
offset developers are concerned it could be a harbinger of what’s to come.
On June 3, British Columbia fire officials spotted a blaze that has impacted
the BigCoast Forest Climate Initiative project, according to Domenico
Iannidinardo, senior vice president for forests and climate at Mosaic Forest
Management Corporation, which runs the project.
“About 100 hectares of our 40,000 hectare project was involved in this fire,”
or about 0.25% of the project, Iannidinardo said. That’s an area equivalent to
roughly 140 football pitches worth of forest.
So far, little is known about how the fire will impact BigCoast’s carbon
removal capacity or how much carbon has been released. Werner Kurz, senior
research scientist in the Canadian Forest Service, said its emissions could be
up to 32,250 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, depending on the fire’s
severity. The impact is “clearly not trivial” for BigCoast or the local area,
he said, but it’s a “rounding error” in terms of the climate impact of the
wildfires that have ravaged the province."
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
